The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has appointed Brigadier (Retd) Amir Shehzad as Director General (DG) Enforcement, moving him from his previous position as DG Licensing to take charge of the authority’s enforcement division. PTA Chairman assigned Shehzad the new role, with the transfer taking effect immediately, giving the enforcement division a new head at a time when PTA has been actively pursuing a series of penalties against telecom operators over Quality of Service violations. The appointment adds to a broader reshuffling pattern PTA has followed periodically as it moves senior officials across its various divisions, including licensing, enforcement, compliance, and technical roles.
In his new position, Shehzad has been tasked with reinforcing the authority’s enforcement system and improving the quality of telecom services for consumers, an area that has drawn sustained parliamentary scrutiny in recent months. The National Assembly’s IT committee has repeatedly pressed PTA officials on fines imposed for poor mobile service quality, while the regulator has separately issued substantial enforcement orders against operators including Telenor, PTML, and Zong over QoS violations identified through nationwide surveys. Shehzad’s transition from licensing, which deals primarily with issuing and regulating operator authorizations, into enforcement, which handles the actual penalty and compliance side of PTA’s regulatory mandate, gives him oversight of the division most directly tied to these ongoing consumer service quality disputes.
Speaking about his appointment, Shehzad described the DG Enforcement role as an important and challenging responsibility, saying he would work to meet the expectations of the government, PTA, and telecom consumers while keeping consumer expectations a key consideration in his approach. This framing suggests Shehzad intends to position consumer protection as central to how the enforcement division operates going forward, aligning with PTA’s broader stated priorities around service quality accountability that have been repeatedly emphasized in recent parliamentary committee sessions. As a retired Brigadier, Shehzad’s appointment also continues a pattern within PTA’s senior leadership of drawing officials with military backgrounds into key administrative roles, a trend that has been common across the authority’s chairmanship and member-level positions over the years.
The appointment comes as PTA’s enforcement division faces an expanding workload, having recently imposed a combined Rs145.833 million in fines on Telenor, PTML, and Zong over QoS violations, alongside ongoing enforcement actions on issues ranging from ONIC SIM regularization to ongoing complaints about network coverage gaps in areas like Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Whether Shehzad’s transition into the role translates into more consistent or accelerated enforcement action against operators falling short of PTA’s service quality benchmarks will likely become clearer as his tenure in the position progresses, particularly given the volume of pending QoS-related cases and consumer complaints the enforcement division currently has on its plate.
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