KARACHI: An accountability court has indicted five suspects, including key officers of the Pakistan State Oil (PSO), in a case pertaining to corruption through supply of petroleum products to M/s Admore Gas Pakistan Limited in 2010 and 2012.

The then PSO managing director Irfan Khalil Qureshi; the then senior general manager Zulfiqar Ali Jafri, chief executive officer/president of M/s Admore Gas Muhammad Saeed Mehdi, its then managing director Razi Ahmed and its then head of commercial and marketing Anwar Masood Zaidi were charged with supplying petroleum products worth over Rs56.46 billion to M/s Admore that earned over Rs552.45 million profit only meant for the PSO.

The administrative judge of the accountability courts, Abdul Ghani Soomro, read out the charges to the accused persons, who were present in court. All of them pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case.

The judge summoned the prosecution witnesses to record their statement in the case on the next date and adjourned the hearing.

According to the charge read out by the judge, accused Qureshi, who was appointed as PSO chief by the ministry of petroleum and natural resources on Feb 23, 2009, had issued a letter dated Oct 4, 2010 authorising co-accused Jafri to sign an agreement with M/s Admore Gas for supply of petroleum oil lubricant (POL) products on equal sharing of government profit margin to it.

It stated that on the basis of the said authority Jafri entered into an agreement on Oct 7, 2010 with co-accused Hanafi, the managing director of the Admore Gas, and under this agreement the PSO supplied POL products worth more than Rs20bn to the private firm, from which the latter derived more than Rs165m profit, which was actually meant for the PSO.

Later, PSO chief Qureshi joined the Admore Gas as its managing director and CEO in 2014, it added.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2021