The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Friday decided to investigate shutdown and collapse of the country's largest industrial unit, Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM), which has incurred loss of billions of rupees to the national exchequer.
A senior official of the NAB said that keeping in view loss of billions of rupees and lack of attention of the government, the Bureau had decided to conduct a detailed inquiry into the PSM's collapse to identify people responsible for it and to ascertain whether or not the collapse of PSM was part of any conspiracy. The NAB inquiry would determine opportunist elements involved in collapse of the PSM, he added.
He said the decision to that effect was taken at a meeting presided over by Chairman NAB, former Justice Javed Iqbal. The anti-graft body decided that the names of people responsible for collapse of the PSM would be placed on Exit Control List (ECL) in order to bar them from fleeing abroad, he added.
It merits mentioning here that the National Assembly Standing Committee on Industries and Production had written a letter to the NAB to investigate collapse of the PSM and take action against those responsible in this regard.
The PSM played a vital role in the industrial development of the country, but in June 2015, the gas supply was cut off, which led to the closure of all operations of the PSM and its shutdown, the letter said.
According to the information provided to the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Industries and Production, the PSM was incurring loss of approximately Rs 1.4 billion each month, resulting in the loss of precious foreign exchange being spent on the import of steel in the country, both in private and public sector.
The PSM is on zero production heat mode since its gas supply was drastically cut on June 10, 2015. The zero production mode has reportedly pushed the PSM losses and liabilities beyond billions of rupees that stood around Rs 200 billion when Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government assumed power in May 2013 elections.
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