The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Monday clarified a news report that foreign oil marketing companies had threatened to withdraw investment worth Rs 1 billion if the government accepted NAB's proposal to recover Rs 4.5 billion from them.
A NAB press release said that the focus of its inquiry was purely on checking the implementation of the government policies.
The inquiry focus was neither on foreign oil marketing companies nor foreign investment, it said.
NAB said misinformation regarding the intent of the inquiry was being disseminated to give the impression that as a result of this inquiry the companies would be forced to pay back the "exorbitant and uncalled for profits" running into billion of rupees to the government.
"It is clarified that this is complete misinformation being spread with intent to create panic amongst the oil marketing companies, thus creating pressure on the government and NAB to shelve the inquiry," the press release said.
The press release said in June 2001, the Federal Cabinet decided to transfer the oil price fixation function to Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC) subject to monitoring/regulating by Director General Oil, Petroleum and Oil.
However, the same was not followed resulting into non-transparent fixation of oil prices as was also observed by the World Bank 2003 Report, the press release said.
It said rapid escalation of oil prices adversely affects all commodities and financial activities in the country, hence the dire need to review the entire mechanism of oil price fixation to make it fair and transparent. The Bureau said the sole purpose of the oil inquiry was to bring to light the non-implementation of the government policies so that the government could take adequate remedial measures.
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