NA panel hearing: OGDCL, PPL grilled over ghost welfare projects

The companies are accused of showing many a Balochistan scheme only on paper.

ISLAMABAD:

National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) has initiated a probe after it found scant evidence for several ‘ghost welfare and development projects’, carried out by oil and gas exploration companies in Balochistan.

The body met on Tuesday, with Mir Ahmedan Khan Bugti in the chair, and called for the establishment of a subcommittee to probe the issue of non-existent welfare and development projects, initiated so far by OGDCL and oil companies in Balochistan.

The meeting questioned Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) and Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) authorities after it found that these companies had shown many welfare and development projects completed by their own resources but there had been nothing concrete on the ground.

The OGDCL authorities informed the committee that it had initiated development projects with estimated cost of Rs225.516 million for the year 2010-2011 in Dera Bugti area of Balochistan.

The committee was informed that 703 employees, working at OGDCL, were hired from Balochistan and 54 other employees from the province were hired through third party contracts.

The acting managing director of Pakistan Petroleum Limited, while briefing the Committee, informed that two members of Board of Director (BoD) in PPL were from Balochistan too.

The committee also raised several questions related to production and profitability of the organisations.



Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2011.