CNG licenses: SC unconvinced by Ogra, petroleum ministry’s replies

Gas authority claims apex court action based on false report.

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court hearing of the alleged grant of illegal CNG station licenses by successive PPP prime ministers and then petroleum minister Dr Asim Hussain, took a new turn on Wendesday.

The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) told the SC on Wednesday that it issued 1,471 operational licenses from 2008 to 2012 but none of these were fresh licenses, and all of them had secured NOCs before 2008.

Not convinced with Ogra’s reply, a three-judge bench comprising of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, said efforts were afoot to cover up misdoings.

The SC has taken notice of the issue after its registrar office submitted a note to the chief justice claiming that 450 illegal CNG licenses were issued during Gilani’s tenure and 200 in Ashraf’s tenure – several of these were issued to their relatives. Ogra has also been pressurised by the former premiers to issue illegal licenses, the note added.

Ogra’s counsel, advocate Salman Akram Raja, argued that the news report on the basis of which the apex court had initiated the proceedings was not true.

Secretary Petroleum Abid Saeed took the same stance and stated that the ministry had not issued even a single license as this was not its domain.

Ogra’s executive director Moazzam Hussain explained that an extension of 15 years in the form of operational licenses were given to CNG station owners who already had provisional licenses.

A total of 656 such operational licenses were issued from 2008-09, 301 during 2009-10, 160 in 2010-11 and 64 in 2011-12.

On a summary by the petroleum ministry, the prime minister’s secretariat issued a clarification lifting the April 18, 2011 moratorium on new industrial and commercial gas connections across the country for six months. This allowed the grant of operational licenses to those CNG stations which had completed the license requirements but had not installed the machinery, and revoked the licenses of those which failed to fulfill the requirements.

However, the chief justice observed that since unauthorised licenses were issued, agencies like the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) would deal with them.

The court even asked Ogra officials to submit complete files of all 64 cases on which licenses were issued in 2011-12.

Ogra provided the details on at least 23 such cases, out of which five or six were even perused by the court, but nothing significant was obtained from these.

During the proceedings, Ogra vice chairman Sabir Hussain explained that the summaries on which relaxation was sought from the prime minister’s secretariat were issued by the petroleum ministry.

The court ordered both Ogra and the petroleum ministry to place on record copies of all the applications for the CNG stations. The case will be taken up again on April 12.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2013.