ISLAMABAD:
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has sprung into action in a bid to launch a probe into millions of rupees worth of irregularities allegedly committed by oil marketing companies (OMCs) in freight claims and payment of petroleum levy.
The FIA stepped in after the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) and director general oil failed to take action against the people involved in the corruption.
The irregularities came to light after Ogra’s Joint Executive Director Finance and Enforcement Shahid Nauman Afzal pointed them out following surprise visits of the regulator’s inspection teams to OMC facilities. But after his transfer, the matter was reportedly dumped by some officials of Ogra and the DG oil of the Ministry of Petroleum.
According to documents available with The Express Tribune, the FIA had sought from Ogra details of the case as the regulator’s Enforcement Department had some record because of inspection of the OMC facilities.
The Enforcement Department came to know about the corruption in 2013. Afterwards, Ogra sent a letter to Director General Oil Muhammad Azam to seek comments over the findings, but the DG never responded, causing an unnecessary delay in taking action against the OMCs.
The regulator has now provided to the FIA details of the follow-up action taken in respect of inspection of the facilities of four oil companies.
Earlier, the FIA Crime Circle, in a letter sent to Ogra, said the investigating agency was conducting a probe into allegations of massive corruption pertaining to the petroleum development levy and inland freight equalisation margin, which had caused a huge loss to the national exchequer.
It pointed out that the Enforcement Department of Ogra had made surprise inspections of facilities of four oil companies between September 2011 and March 2012 in various cities and unearthed massive irregularities in payment of petroleum levy and freight claims by these companies.
According to the FIA, it was found that APL alone was involved in illegal bulk sales of 102.8 million litres of petrol, causing a loss of Rs70 million to the public purse in lost petroleum levy.
“Therefore, communications/correspondence made with APL from September 12, 2011 to date about the heavy sales at the company’s outlets should be provided to the FIA,” the letter added.
The FIA has also acquired sales data of retail outlets of the OMCs. It has got details of all outlets about actual supply of the product, daily movement of the commodity and details of tank lorries used for this purpose.
The FIA has also got hold of the record of dispensers at the outlets, maximum capacity of the nozzles, sales reported to Ogra against which freight was charged, payments made by the outlets to the OMCs for product supplies and mode of GST payment to the Federal Board of Revenue.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 18th, 2014.
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