ISLAMABAD: The Nat­ional Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Saturday furnished a report before the Supreme Court highlighting ongoing inquiries against the Pak­istan Petroleum Limited (PPL) about acquisition of MND Exploration and Production.

The report was submitted by NAB in response to an earlier direction by the apex court to come up with particulars about the pending inquiries and investigations into a case relating to the acquisition of MND Exploration and Production by PPL at a price twice the market value.

According to media reports, PPL acquired MND in 2012-13 for Rs12.81 billion against its actual market value of Rs6.21bn thus allegedly causing a net loss of Rs6.6bn to PPL.

In its report, NAB stated that after receiving a complaint from PPL, the NAB chairman authorised an inquiry on Sept 19 last year, whereas another complaint was received on Jan 29 this year under Section 41-B of the Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan Act, 1997. Subsequently, the NAB chairman authorized another inquiry on May 25. This inquiry was then merged with the previous ongoing inquiry.

The inquiry established that during 2011-12, PPL through a fictitious evaluation report concluded by the financial adviser of KASB Bank acquired assets of MND E&P UK at $180 million. However, the actual worth of the assets was not more than $56m to $60m.

This fact is further supplemented by an RPS Energy Austria Evaluation Report conducted in 2015-16 and Forensic Investigation Report conducted by Deloitte UK.

The inquiry has been completed highlighting a criminal role of five accused persons, including the beneficiary accused of Czech Republic who was also identified and forwarded to the NAB headquarters for conversion of inquiry into investigations, the report said, adding that the final approval in this regard would be accor­ded in the next meeting of the bureau’s executive board.

Moreover, an investigation into complaints against officers of the Pakistan State Oil (PSO), Byco and PPL is also under process, besides the draft reference and investigation report have also been sent to the NAB headquarters for approval of reference after fulfilling legal and codal formalities.

The report also mentioned a number of inquiries pending before NAB in matters relating to the ministry of petroleum and natural resources, PSO, the Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) and the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra).

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2018

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