Billions of rupees paid to ghost employees at OGDC

Information revealed to NAB investigators by company’s management.

ISLAMABAD: An ‘organised gang’ in the Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) has made payments worth billions of rupees to ‘ghost employees’ belonging to the company’s Workers Participation Fund Trust (WPFT), an ongoing National Accountability Bureau (NAB) probe into the matter has uncovered.

The gang, which comprises senior OGDC officials and office-bearers of the Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA), made the fraudulent payments between 2009 and 2012, sources told the Express Investigation Cell (EIC).  OGDC pays 5% of its annual income to WPFT. The trust is jointly managed by OGDC’s HR department and CBA office-bearers.

The OGDC management revealed the information to NAB investigators itself, they said.



NAB investigators had summoned OGDC Executive Director Human Resource (HR) Mirza Basharat to brief them on the procedure and by-laws which govern WPFT, and company rules for hiring new employees. Basharat confirmed the meeting took place in Islamabad two weeks ago while talking to EIC.

The gang responsible for ‘ghost payments’ had full blessing from a minister in former premier Yousaf Raza Gilani’s cabinet and as such remained untouchable for some time. Last month, however, NAB started probing the matter after receiving information about the misuse of WPFT from sources within OGDC. The bureau sought relevant records from OGDC to identify those responsible for misuse and received a four-hour-long briefing from the company officials.



NAB is also investigating the illegal hiring of 4,500 employees by OGDC under the Pakistan Peoples Party government.

“Before the PPP came into power, OGDC’s strength amounted to 9,800 workers,” an official from the OGDC HR department told EIC. This number exceeded 10,000 between 2009 and 2010, he said. Thousands more, he added, were appointed between 2010 and 2012.

“All these appointments were illegal because they were made during a ban, and were made on a purely political basis,” the official said.

According to him, the appointments were made by converting over 4,000 daily wagers into contractual employees. This move, he said, added Rs200 million to OGDC’s monthly salary bill.

“Moneymakers fixed rates ranging from Rs0.5 million to over Rs1 million for different jobs in OGDC… this was an open secret in those days,” an official privy to NAB investigations said.

The role of OGDC’s HR department was even more objectionable since its officials facilitated illegal appointments after office working hours.

NAB is also looking into the illegal renting of a bulletproof land cruiser by OGDC. The vehicle was rented at a monthly cost of Rs1.215 million for the company’s boss from Pinnacle International, an Islamabad- based car rental, without following Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules.

When contacted OGDC managing director Riaz Khan said his organisation is cooperating with NAB for proper investigations into the cases in question. “We are here to establish the rule of law and hence will make sure that NAB gets full cooperation from our management,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2014.