Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has registered First Information Report (FIR) against five persons including three employees of the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) found involved in the Rs 570 million embezzlement case in OGDCL Employees Housing Society.
This was revealed by the Director (FIA) while responding to a query of a Member in the meeting of National Assembly Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Resources (P&NR), held here on Monday presided over by Chaudhary Bilal Ahmed Virk, Chairman Standing Committee. Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources (P&NR) Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told the panel that this was a unique case as the entire record of the housing society was destroyed and the concerned patwari of the area, Chattar, located on Old Murree Road, managed to flee to Dubai.
The committee members expressed serious concerns over the rejoining of an official of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) responsible for Rs 6.2 million embezzlements who admitted his crime in a court of law and returned Rs 0.5 million and ensured the court that another amount of Rs 0.7 million will be submitted with the company. The committee directed Chief Financial Officer of PSO to withhold his salary until getting a detailed verdict of the court.
The meeting was further informed that 90% construction work of Petroleum House has been completed while the rest 10 percent will be carried out by December 15; 2015 and by December 30, different attached departments of the Petroleum Ministry will be shifted to the new building. The Petroleum Minister told the committee that the project was initiated in 2005 with an estimated cost of Rs 225 million but it lingered on due to various reasons; as a result, the total cost of the project crossed Rs 800 million.
Earlier, the Committee was told that an internal inquiry was also conducted by OGDCL Management alleged that the OGDCL employees (namely, Irfan Babar, presently working as General Manager, (Store), Rasheed Janjua, General Secretary of the Society and Aftab Shah misused the logo, telephone numbers and offices of OGDCL House; giving false impression that the subject Housing Society has the full patronage of the Company. The case was registered against the above three employees (serving and retired) on 3rd March, 2015 and currently they are on pre-arrest bail. The FIA is making every effort to cancel their bails so that, either Rs 570 million could be recovered or the possession of the plots could be made possible to the bonafide desperate allottees of the Housing Society. Faizan Azam, the Developer of the Society, was arrested and is on bail now, Director (FIA) further apprised the Committee. The Committee directed that Irfan Babar be removed immediately from the post of C.M (Store) and progress upon the affairs of Housing Society be brought to the Committee's knowledge in the next meeting.
Director General Petroleum Concessions Saeedullah Shah (DGPC) briefing the committee on the countrywide progress related to exploration activities of many Exploration and Production (E&P) companies said that the licenses of 10 E&P companies have been revoked because of their failure to complete the work within due time. He added that his office has issued 7 show-cause notices to E&P companies for causing a long delay in undertaking the necessary work on the concessional blocks allocated to them from 1991-2010. Shah maintained that DGPC has issued additional 9 notices to E&P companies for their failure in initiating the work within stipulated time-frame.
The Committee decided to convene another meeting on the performance of (E&P) companies in the next week. Nasir Khan Khattak Member standing committee, speaking on the occasion, alleged that the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pervaiz Khattak, was diverting funds allocated to other districts to his home district Nowshehra and Swabi.
He expressed serious concern on the violation of utilising of Royalty fund in Nowshehra District; instead of utilizing the amount in the oil and gas producing Districts of KPK (as per Constitution requirement).
The committee was informed that as far as on-going gas supply schemes are concerned, the government has allocated Rs 7.7 billion of which 3.8 billion has been utilised by the companies and another 2 billion will be released very soon, while rest of Rs 1.7 billion will be released after the utilisation of released funds. Besides, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Jam Kamal Ahmad, State Minister for P&NR, and Shazadi Umarzadi Tiwana, Parliamentary Secretary for (P&NR) and Arshid Mirza Secretary (P&NR) along with other senior officials attended the meeting. The meeting was also attended by Malik Ihtebar Khan, Syed Muhammad Saqlain Bukhari, Tariq Mehmood, Rasheed Ahmad Khan, Nawab Ali Wassan, Nasir Khan Khattak MNAs and Akram Khan Durrani Federal Minister for Housing & Works.
Comments
Comments are closed.