The National Assembly on Wednesday passed ''''The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2008'''' with a simple majority. According to the statement of objects and reasons of the Bill, the proposed amendment was issued by the Federal Government in view of energy crisis in the country.
Since the post of the Chairman of Ogra is filled by the Federal Government, therefore, it was deemed necessary by the government to fill it by appointing a person who has hands-on experience on regulatory matters, with proven track record of leadership, initiatives and experience in management with a broad based exposure to working of the government at all levels.
Ogra (Amendment) Bill, 2008 proposes to substitute sub-section 4 in Section 3 of the Ordinance, 2002 as: "The Chairman shall be an eminent professional of known integrity and competence with a minimum of twenty years of related experience in law, business, engineering, finance, accounting, economics, petroleum technology, public administration or management".
Section 3(4) original provision is reproduced below: "The Chairman shall be an eminent professional of known integrity and competence with a minimum of twenty years of related experience in law, business, engineering, finance, accounting, economics or petroleum technology". The Bill was moved by Minister-in-Charge of the Cabinet Secretariat Ghazanfar Ali Gul.
Zahid Hamid and Pervez Malik of PML-N raised objections on the addition of public administration or management experience for the appointment of Ogra chairman. They said that this condition should be withdrawn because this entitles generalists to be inducted for this post.
Zahid said that Ogra chairman is a key post, and suggested that addition of public administration and management is an internal process and it should be withdrawn as it opens the field for political appointments. He said that Section 3 of the Ordinance, 2002 already fulfils appropriate discipline for appointment of Ogra chairman and there is absolutely no need to add "public management and administration'''' as a qualifying experience.
When Deputy Speaker Faisal Kareem Kundi put clause 2 of the Bill in the House for passage, the members of PML-N strongly opposed it. The Deputy Speaker counted a total of 75 supporters of the Clause while 50 opposed it. The Speaker passed the Bill with simple majority.