National Fertilizer Marketing: Company flouts rules on staff hiring

Rs105.8m incurred in losses due to irregularities, audit shows.

LAHORE: Over a period of five years, the National Fertilizer Marketing Limited (NFML) has appointed 700 employees from top to lower levels in violation of rules, on bogus antecedents and without advertising the posts in newspapers, according to a special audit’s findings.

These irregularities in hiring employees were detected during the audit for the period 2008 to 2013 conducted on the instructions of the Auditor General of Pakistan. The appointments caused a loss of Rs105.88 million to the company, the audit report revealed.

NFML is a public unlisted company incorporated under the Companies Ordinance 1984 with the objectives of marketing and sale of fertiliser purchased from domestic manufacturers and urea imported by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan. It has four regional offices and an extensive dealers’ network in four provinces.

The company recruited six men during September 2011 to December 2012 without verifying their qualifications and experience certificates. The verification process got under way in August 2013 and the employees whose degrees and certificates were found bogus were fired. They caused a loss of Rs3.60 million in salaries.

The company was operating 35 storages and sold 5.44 million tons of fertiliser during 2008-13 through its 3,060 dealers. The fertiliser was worth Rs83.270 billion.

The company brought into its fold 19 employees during April to June 2011, but it did not advertise the posts in newspapers and failed to follow the appointment procedure.

Four retired army officers were appointed without recommendation from the Defence Services Officers Selection Board (DSOSB). The appointments caused a loss of Rs10.13 million.

NFML also hired services of 10 store heads without any advertisement and constituting the selection board, which was mandatory. It lost Rs9.17 million because of these appointments, the audit report said.

NFML terminated services of 89 contract employees in September 2012 and later in 2013 the management hired 680 employees on contract for posting in three newly established regional offices. They got salaries of Rs80.88 million until the audit was conducted.

In July 2011, NFML engaged a man as a marketing consultant on a salary of Rs50,000 per month. In October, he was recruited as deputy general manager marketing without advertisement and interview by the selection board, the audit pointed out.

Later, his MBA degree was found fake and his services were terminated in June 2013. This illegal appointment caused a loss of Rs2.10 million.

According to an official, the company could make appointments on contract after consulting the chairman of the board of directors, but no consultation was done in these cases. Rules for recruitment/appointments say vacancies should be advertised in leading national and regional newspapers to invite applications from suitable candidates and this too was also ignored.

Apart from these, selection should be made through selection committees or boards. The retired officers of armed forces were eligible for re-employment on the recommendation of DSOSB, but the condition was not adhered to, he added.

Talking to The Express Tribune, NFML Managing Director Basit Abbasi acknowledged that objections to the recruitments were raised during audit like no proper advertisements and selections and lack of compliance with the set procedure.

“We have filed our reply to the auditor general and if the observations are not settled, they will be taken up by the Department Accounts Committee for resolution,” Abbasi said.

If not settled here too, the matter could be referred to the Public Accounts Committee and PAC’s decision would be implemented accordingly, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 19^th, 2014.

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