Govt appoints Riaz Khan as acting OGDC MD

Former MD faces charges of reinstating ‘officials involved in Rs320m oil theft’.

ISLAMABAD: The caretaker government has appointed M Riaz Khan as acting managing director of Oil and Gas Development Company, the country’s largest oil and gas explorer, after removing former head Masood Siddiqui on charges of corruption and irregularities in appointments.

Khan, who was working as executive director of the company, took charge as company MD following a notification issued by the Establishment Division on Tuesday, an official of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources said.

Earlier, Siddiqui was sacked after Caretaker Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso approved on Monday a summary sent by the petroleum ministry.

In a charge sheet prepared against Siddiqui, the petroleum ministry said it had come to its knowledge that Siddiqui had been managing the affairs of OGDC in a “partisan, selective, arbitrary and non-transparent manner.”

To support its claim, the ministry said Siddiqui had “arbitrarily hired” a bullet-proof vehicle in Karachi at a hefty rent of Rs1.2 million per month. In another case pertaining to investigation into high speed diesel pilferage worth Rs320 million at Tando Alam logistics (unit), two inquiry committees comprising senior officials of OGDC had established involvement of Niaz Ahmad Arbab, operating manager (logistics), who was suspended in January 2012.



Siddiqui, however, on the recommendations of a security officer, Colonel (Retired) Javaid Iqbal, quashed the findings of the committees and instead outsourced the probe to a private security company at a cost of Rs2.2 million.

This company exonerated all the accused earlier found involved in diesel theft. Following this, Siddiqui reinstated the accused in August 2012 in blatant disregard of rules and policy since no policy allowed the managing director to outsource investigation of a serious matter involving millions of rupees, the charge sheet said.

Siddiqui also took on the payroll around 3,000 third-party workers, who were hired through third-party contractors and would automatically become regular employees after a couple of years.

He also gave approval to enhancing the pay and allowances of the company’s employees union by 40%. These measures would impact most negatively OGDC’s finances, possibly to the tune of Rs3 billion per annum, while encouraging other state-owned organisations to demand similar concessions, the ministry said in the charge sheet.

Attempts were made to contact Siddiqui, but he could not be reached.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2013.

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