MoITT Creates Internet Governance Director Post, But Does Pakistan Need a New Hire or a Better Ministry?

Pakistan’s IT Ministry is creating an Internet Governance Director post at Rs 1.5 million a month to lead national internet policy and represent the country at ICANN, IGF, and APNIC, work that the ministry and its hundreds of employees have apparently been unable to do for years. Before celebrating this as progress, it is worth asking the question nobody in government seems to be asking: if the ministry cannot do this job already, what exactly has it been doing?

The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication has invited applications for the post of Director Internet Governance under the Special Professional Pay Scale II, an all-inclusive monthly package of up to Rs1.5 million, or approximately Rs18 million annually, drawn from public funds. The role will lead Pakistan’s national internet governance strategy, represent the country at major international digital forums, and coordinate domestic stakeholders toward a coherent national position on global internet policy.

Read that job description carefully. Then ask: is that not precisely what the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication is supposed to do?

What the ToRs Reveal

The Terms of Reference for this post read like a description of a functioning IT ministry. Formulate a national internet governance strategy. Represent Pakistan at ICANN, IGF, and APNIC. Build internet governance capacity across government, academia, and civil society. Monitor global policy developments. Coordinate multi-stakeholder engagement. Provide expert policy advice.

These are not supplementary tasks that fall outside a ministry’s mandate. They are core functions of any government body responsible for digital policy. Pakistan’s IT Ministry employs hundreds of officials, including high-level positions across multiple divisions. It has a budget, a mandate, and has been in operation for decades.

And yet, by its own implicit admission, through the very existence of this job posting, it has not been doing these things. Pakistan has been showing up to ICANN and IGF meetings inconsistently, without a senior dedicated focal point, without coherent policy positions, and without the sustained relationship-building that makes international forum participation effective rather than symbolic.

The ministry’s solution is to hire one person at Rs1.5 million a month.

One Person Versus Hundreds of Employees

The logic of this appointment contains a contradiction that demands examination. If representing Pakistan on the global internet governance stage requires a dedicated senior expert with ten years of experience in internet policy, ICANN participation, and DNS frameworks, why has a ministry staffed with hundreds of officials been unable to produce or develop such expertise internally?

Two answers are possible, and neither reflects well on the ministry.

If the job is genuinely complex and specialist, then one contract hire does not solve the problem; it papers over it. One Director of Internet Governance working within a ministry full of officials who do not understand internet governance cannot transform Pakistan’s global digital diplomacy. The institutional knowledge gap remains. When the two-year contract ends, Pakistan is back where it started.

If the job could have been done by existing staff, with proper orientation and competence, then the problem was never a missing post. It was the wrong people filling the posts that already exist.

The RoW Bill: What Ministry Incompetence Actually Looks Like

For those who need a concrete example, the ministry’s own recent track record provides one.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Reorganisation Amendment Bill 2026, drafted by this ministry and pushed through the National Assembly, became a political firestorm because its language was imprecise enough to be read as authorising telecom operators to enter private property without consent, with Rs50 million fines for non-compliant owners. The Senate committee stopped it. The Prime Minister set up a review committee. The Law Minister personally toured to reassure citizens that their property rights were safe.

A ministry with competent legal and policy drafting capability does not produce legislation so poorly worded that it requires emergency public relations management and prime ministerial intervention. The RoW bill is not an anomaly; it is a symptom of what happens when political affiliation matters more than technical competence in staffing decisions.

Rs 1.5 Million a Month From a Country Under Austerity

Pakistan is currently under an IMF programme. The government has raised taxes on hybrid vehicles, mobile phone top-ups, and salaried employees. It classified solar panels as a luxury item. It has imposed austerity across public spending while negotiating external financing to cover its deficit.

Against that backdrop, a Rs18 million annual contract hire, for a role that the ministry’s existing mandate already covers, demands justification. Not because Rs1.5 million per month is inherently indefensible for a genuine specialist, but because it is indefensible when the underlying problem is not a missing post but a ministry that has failed to develop competence in its own core domain. Taxpayers bearing the cost of austerity deserve better than watching those same taxes fund a workaround for institutional failure.

Pakistan’s government has a recognisable response to institutional failure in technical domains. When a ministry cannot do what it is supposed to do, the response is rarely to reform the institution, replace incompetent officials, or restructure how it works. The response is to create a new post, hire someone on a special pay scale, give them a title, and declare that the problem is being addressed.

The Director Internet Governance post fits this pattern exactly.

What Actually Needs to Happen

Pakistan genuinely needs better internet governance capability. The country’s 200 million mobile subscribers, its $3.38 billion IT export sector, its 5G ambitions, and its cryptocurrency taxation agenda are all affected by decisions being made in forums where Pakistan has been absent or ineffective. This is a real problem that deserves a serious response.

The serious response is not a new job post. It is a recognition that the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication needs to be staffed differently, with officials who have actual technical expertise in digital policy, selected on the basis of competence rather than political affiliation. It means replacing officials who cannot competently draft telecommunications legislation with people who can. It means building institutional knowledge rather than contracting it in on a two-year basis.

The Director Internet Governance appointment may bring one competent person into the ministry temporarily. What Pakistan actually needs is a ministry that does not require such appointments because its own staff are already equipped to do the job.

The Bottom Line

Pakistan’s IT Ministry is spending Rs1.5 million a month to outsource a function it should have been performing internally for years. This post is not a sign of progress; it is a confession that the ministry responsible for Pakistan’s digital future has been unable to develop the expertise needed to represent the country on the global internet governance stage.

The appointment of one contract hire, however qualified, does not answer the question that actually matters: why is a ministry staffed by hundreds of officials, funded by Pakistani taxpayers, and mandated to lead the country’s digital development so consistently failing to do so? Until that question gets an honest answer and an honest response, Pakistan will keep creating expensive new posts to compensate for institutional failures it refuses to confront directly.