ISLAMABAD, Sept 4: The federal government has dissolved the board of directors of Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) and has replaced its chairman with immediate effect.Informed sources said OGDCL chairman Arshad Nasir had been relieved and in his place Farooq Rahmatullah had been appointed as new chairman. Arshad Nasir, who held dual office of chairman and managing director for the last few years, had resigned from the post of managing director a couple of months ago.

These sources said the government had also changed more than five directors of the existing OGDCL board. The names of the new members and outgoing members were not immediately available and the officials at the ministry of petroleum and natural resources were not available to comment on the changes.

Sources on the government side claimed that Mr Nasir and some of his colleagues were shown the door on complaints of mismanagement and non-completion of some of the critical development projects.

Those close to the outgoing executives, however, claimed that they had been made to quit for resisting government pressure on allocation of gas quotas and out-of-merit promotion of some employees on the recommendations of the ruling party.

Meanwhile, Pakistan State Oil Managing Director Mohammad Abdul Aleem and Executive Director Kalim Siddiqui had also resigned from their posts on similar circumstances.

Sources in the government said the two executives were facing serious audit objections but their friends claimed they had refused to make unjustified favours to public sector organisation on federal government’s instructions.