PESHAWAR: Provincial Inspection Team (PIT) has recommended disciplinary action against the acting chief executive officer of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Oil and Gas Company for his non-cooperation and non-provision of record during probe into appointments in the company.

PIT has also recommended to the authority concerned that findings and recommendations of another inquiry committee, conducted by energy and power department about the irregularities in KPOGCL, may be implemented and necessary action against the delinquent in the light of the report may be taken accordingly.

The energy and power department had conducted a probe couple of months ago into the KPOGCL affairs and detected anomalies in recruitment of 78 per cent of total staff in the oil and gas company.

“Action against the concerned may be taken for unlawful appointment of Khurram Tariq, chief of human resource, and Mohammad Naeem Khan, company secretary,” recommends PIT in its probe report.

KPOGCL acting chief says he is not allowed to share data with anyone

In order to streamline the business of KPOGCL, PIT has also recommended that its chief executive officer (CEO) may be appointed on regular basis as per law.

It has also said that the human resource manual of KPOGCL and service rules related to various posts in the company such as qualification, experience, age limit required for various posts, mode of appointment, fixation of pay, selection and marks evaluation/grading criteria for the selection of candidate against various posts may be revisited.

PIT has also recommended that a standard procedure for termination of the contractual employees may also be evolved to minimise the whimsical approach of termination of such employees and avoid future litigation and all the above rules may be vetted from law department.

The acting CEO of KPOGCL, Nasir Khan, when contacted, said that he also heard about the submission of the PIT report with the energy and power department. “The PIT report will be discussed in the board of directors meeting of KPOGCL. The board will meet on Wednesday,” he said, adding they were working under the board and were answerable to it.

Asked why the required information and data were not provided to PIT, he said that actually he was not authorised to share information and data with anyone without the approval of board of directors.

About the irregularities detected in the previous inquiry conducted by the officials of energy and power department, Mr Khan said that on completion of the inquiry, it was presented to the board. On the directives of the board, three officials of the company were sacked while proceedings against several of them were in progress, he added.

He said that the board also declared the appointments as cleared, which were mentioned in the energy and power department’s inquiry as irregular.

Commenting on the appointment of Khurran Tariq and Mohammad Naeem Khan, he said that the appointments of both of them were approved by the board. “I am open to any kind of accountability,” he added.

The PIT report said the acting CEO of KPOGCL did not provide the complete appointment record even after a lapse of considerable time that was one and half months.

It said that he was found reluctant to provide the appointment record, which cast doubts of concealment of facts. “One of the reasons behind non-cooperation of Nasir Khan was that his own appointment was declared irregular by inquiry committee of energy and power department,” it added.

The report stated that the available deficient record revealed illegalities and irregularities in the appointments of chief of human resource section and secretary of the company.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2023