August 26, 2008	Tuesday	Sha'aban 23, 1429

KARACHI, Aug 25: The public audit committee has detected some discrepancies in the customer care and billing (CC&B) system of the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) as the utility has not been able to reconcile the entries posted in the system introduced in January 2007 for improving billing and other functions, sources said on Monday.

A hefty amount of Rs750 million was invested in developing the IT support for the system and this includes procurement of the specific software. The company has also spent a huge amount on training of its personnel in foreign countries, instead of asking the system provider to send its experts to Pakistan for the purpose to save money.

A list of 30 officials was recently drawn up to send the trainees for a 30-day visit to US and Malaysia but the names of only nine of them were approved by the company’s CEO. This has caused misgiving among those who have spent millions of rupees of the utility’s funds on account of TA/DA.

Those who will be sent to Malaysia will be paid $350 per diem whereas the US-bound trainees will get $400 per diem. The stipend will be in addition to the cost of air ticket and the fee charged by the trainer.

Insiders say that the new SSGC chief is concerned about the matter because it amounts to wastage of the utility’s resources. They say that the utility has allowed GM (Telecom & SCADA), who was due to retire on Oct 18 but has been given an extension, to proceed to the US on an official business/ex-Pakistan leave from Aug 16 to October 2. The SSGC executives concerned said he his lodging, boarding and other expenses would borne by one of the company’s vendors but reliable sources said he was given undue favour.

It may be pointed out that those who are appointed in the IT have a different pay scale and are appointed on different grounds. This had generated bickering in the organization whose IT software-related expenditures have not been audited. But the big question is why Ogra allowed the raise to the utility. In its decision on an SSGC petition regarding final revenue requirement for the year 2006-07, Ogra had noted on Sept 14, 2007 the company had incurred Rs204 million in respect of capital and revenue IT related expenditure for the said year. The amount was booked by the petitioner under various heads.

It was expected that after introduction of IT process, billing would become customer-focused whereas after spending 750 million, the system is still facing problems and it takes more than four to six days for payments to be reflected in a client’s account after he had made payment in the bank. There are still many customers who are seen at the so-called facilitation centres.

Ogra had also noted that the petitioner has booked software expenditure amounting to Rs45 million under the head of “intangible assets”. Ogra was of the view that intangible assets were not to be capitalized for determining revenue requirement and expensed out in the same year, as they do not qualify as “Operating Fixed Assets” per the ADB loan covenants.