NFML takes steps to make its system corruption-free, transparent

Action taken after earlier allegations of misappropriation of Rs27b worth of urea.

LAHORE: National Fertilizer Marketing Limited (NFML) took a number of initiatives to make its system more transparent, efficient and customer-friendly for grant of dealerships, additional quota and redress of grievances, The Express Tribune has learnt. The company appears to be taking steps to avoid future problems regarding allegations of corruption by its officials.

Earlier, the Federal Investigation Agency was prevented allegedly by the interior ministry from registering a case against the officials of the state-owned fertiliser company for their involvement in a multi-billion rupee scam.

The case in question, regarding the misappropriation of urea worth Rs27 billion by officials and contractors of the NFML, first came to light when the FIA received a complaint forwarded by the Supreme Court in April, 2010.

The complainant alleged that the NFML officials received Rs390 million in bribes to allow smuggling of fertiliser to Afghanistan via Chaman. Around 2.5 million tons of urea worth $1 billion was imported by the company, but only 40% of it was delivered to the warehouses. The government provides subsidies on such fertiliser imports.

The NFML fixed deadlines for the execution of each task with zero tolerance towards lethargic attitude of responsible officials and abuse of authority, said a senior officer while requesting anonymity.

NFML handled more than 3,000 dealers in the fertiliser business of the country. However, the company had no proper system to process the complaints, allocate quota and provision approved quantity of urea to individual farmers or registered agency holders in the organisation. The offices of the firm remained packed with dealers during high demand days. Resultantly, the officials exploited their authority for ulterior motives and even a ‘mafia’ was operating to facilitate the dealers regarding the allocation of additional quota and timely provision of fertiliser stocks.

In order to deal with this mismanagement, the administration issued new guidelines to streamline all operations being conducted by NFML. The management established a window cell headed by an assistant manager with 15 supporting officials to ensure timely completion of all tasks. According to new guidelines, the applications for registering a new dealership will be processed by the cell and decision will be taken within 60 working days cutting the processing time significantly from six months previously. Additional quota to the dealers will be decided within four days and booked within a day. Agency cancellation process will be completed within 45 days and the management will ensure the return of the security amount to the defaulters during this period. It is pertinent to mention that the process previously took six months.

The direct buyers or farmers will be able procure urea if they had ‘farad’ (ownership certificate of land) within one week of the application, otherwise it will take 30 days. Earlier, there was no time limit allocated for this task.

The new instructions will help eradicate corruption, break nexus among the employees and the commission ‘mafia’ and improve the efficiency of company, said another senior official. It will promote a farmer friendly environment and remove existing trust deficit among dealers, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th, 2012.