NAB accuses ministry of influencing inquiry: Non-transparent fixation of oil prices
By Our Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD, May 15: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Monday accused the ministry of petroleum of creating a lobby to put pressure on the government through disinformation to shelve the ongoing inquiry into the non-transparent fixation of oil prices over the last five years.
“Ironically, the Ministry of Petroleum has created a lobby to pressurise the NAB to shelve the ongoing inquiry by disseminating misinformation regarding the intent of the inquiry,” said a statement issued by the NAB here on Monday.
It clarified that the NAB was neither focusing on foreign petroleum companies nor on foreign investment. The focus of inquiry is purely to check the implementation of government policies, which have been issued on the subject from time to time based on cabinet decisions.
The major flaw in the oil fixation mechanism was that in June 2001 when the federal cabinet decided to transfer the oil price fixation function to the Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC) subject to monitoring/regulating by the director general oil of the ministry of petroleum.
“However, the same was not followed by the ministry resulting in non-transparent fixation of oil prices as also observed by the World Bank Report 2003,” said the NAB statement.
It said it has now been disclosed that the ministry of petroleum and natural resources had told foreign oil marketing companies that as a result of this inquiry the companies would be forced to pay back the exorbitant and uncalled for profits running into billions of rupees.
The NAB clarified that rumours were being spread with the intent to create panic amongst the oil marketing companies and put pressure on the government and the NAB to shelve the inquiry.
It said the rapid escalation of oil prices adversely affected all commodities and financial activities in the country; therefore, there was dire need to review the entire mechanism of oil price fixation so that it was not only fair but also transparent.
“NAB assesses that the sole purpose of the oil inquiry is to bring to light the non-implementation of government policies so that the government can take adequate remedial measures in order to eliminate the chances of their recurrence,” it said.
NAB sources said that the NAB had already questioned former secretary petroleum Abdullah Yousuf, incumbent secretary Ahmad Waqar and other senior officials of the petroleum ministry on the subject, adding that a three-member inquiry team was currently in Karachi to examine the record of the Pakistan State Oil, interview its officials and interact with other oil companies on the subject.
When approached on the telephone, the spokesman of the petroleum ministry and senior joint secretary, Jehangir Khan, said he was not feeling well and had taken off from office. He claimed there was no spokesman of the ministry as such.
