External auditor to scrutinise excessive gas billing

Petroleum Division also conducting inquiry into inflated bills in winters

ISLAMABAD: The Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) on Wednesday decided to conduct an independent audit of excessive billing by gas utilities through an external auditor, Ferguson.

The auditors will conduct audit for December 2018. An inquiry into excessive billing is already being conducted by the Petroleum Division. The auditors and inquiry committee would probe into the actual consumption of gas, metre reading and impact of change of gas slabs on consumers.

According to an official statement, Finance Minister Asad Umar on Wednesday chaired a CCoE meeting, especially called on instructions of the prime minister to look into the matter of inflated gas billings.

During the meeting, the committee decided to conduct an independent audit of billing for December 2018 in addition to the inquiry of the Petroleum Division. Once completed, reports of both the inquiry and the audit would be submitted to the CCoE.

Earlier, the Petroleum Division secretary gave a detailed presentation to the committee on recent billing exercise of the gas sector. The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) chairman and the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline (SNGPL) managing director also gave their input on the issue.



The meeting was informed that consumers are billed according to the slabs in which they fall, in accordance with their consumption. The Petroleum Division secretary said in view of complaints by a large number of consumers an inquiry had already been launched to look into the matter.

“The inquiry would look at the issue comprehensively from all the different angles,” he said.

The secretary also briefed the CCoE that there has been an overall increase of 8% in the consumption pattern of the consumers falling in the lowest consumption slab.  He said out of the total 6,400,000 gas consumers only 92,000 fall in the 6th and 7th –the highest consumption – slabs affected by high gas bills.

Ogra chairman pointed out that during the month of December 2018 domestic consumption of gas doubles which has changed the pricing slabs for many consumers. However, she also suggested that the data for the last two months may be looked into to find any anomaly.

The meeting also discussed the issue of gas theft, action taken against illegal practices and the determination of the unaccounted for gas (UFG) loss benchmark. It directed the Ministry of Energy to address the issue.