ISLAMABAD, Oct 11: The managing director, Utility Stores Corporation (USC), Brig Hafeez Ahmed (retired), on Saturday said the corporation had overcome financial losses by recovering Rs204.83 million during the last three years.

Speaking at a press conference, Brig Ahmed said the financial position of the USC in 1999 was poor as it was unable to pay its outstanding bills that ran into millions to the suppliers who refused to deliver further supplies.

“Theft was rampant, corruption was at its peak and claims worth millions of rupees of the corporation had not been paid back,” he said.

However, during the last three years, it was being administered in a professional manner and its financial position was far better at present, he said.

The corporation has already paid Rs290 million to the suppliers against their outstanding bills and all multinational, national and local companies were doing business with the USC without any problem.

In 1999, the bank’s mark up was Rs112.51 million which is now Rs68.66 million. Similarly, Rs241.983 million was payable to the corporation by a number of departments and they kept on delaying the payment. However, the corporation has recovered Rs204.83 million during the last three years.

The operational expenses, which were Rs237.35 million in 1999, had been slashed down to Rs159.83 million in 2003. He added that the corporation had paid about Rs558 million during the last five years to the government in the form of income tax, sales tax, and general sales tax.

Likewise, the corporation bears 15 per cent GST while purchasing items whereas majority of the private traders avoid this, as a result the corporation get items at high cost.

It may be added here that the National Assembly was told on Friday that the corporation had to suffer a loss of Rs885.3 million over the last several years mainly because of mismanagement, corruption, lethargy in action and decision- making.

About the reasons of the losses, the minister said the USC sustained heavy losses of over Rs602 million during 1994-97 under the government’s directed operations, which were not reimbursed in time to the corporation. Thus, lack of financial resources adversely affected the corporation’s business.

Moreover, an advance of Rs2 billion was paid to different sugar mills in the country in February 1996 under the government’s instructions by taking loans from the bank to ensure sugar availability and to resist price-hike. But, most of the mills failed to supply sugar in time and also did not refund the USC money, hence the bank’s mark-up of over Rs700 million had to be paid by the corporation during 1996-2002.

Similarly, after the change of government in 1996, different government agencies started accountability process and negative reports started appearing in newspapers on daily basis while inquiries were initiated by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) all of which badly affected the goodwill of the USC.

As a result both national and multinational companies stopped supplying goods. The USC business activities also suffered badly and the sales graph showed a downward trend while non-availability of goods sent customers away. On the other hand the store rent and staff salaries had to be paid from dealing incomes leaving very little for payments to the suppliers.