Adviser to the Prime Minister on Petroleum Dr Asim Hussain on Monday called in question the performance of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) and accused it for not delivering as required under the act governing it. During National Assembly proceeding, responding to a calling attention notice regarding the theft of gas and the role of OGRA, the adviser said OGRA should also have one member each from the Finance and Gas departments. Members Shireen Arshad Khan and Tasneem Siddiqui had raised questions about OGRA’s performance as well as about gas theft from the system, asking the adviser what measures were being taken to improve the mechanism. Hussain said the losses mentioned by the MNAs was not theft rather it was “unaccounted for gas” which had a certain limit and due to the recent legislation and strict monitoring by the government, these losses had been cut down sufficiently. “There are transmission and distribution losses and losses owing to pipeline blasts in the wake of terrorist attacks,” he added. The adviser said to control the losses and theft, OGRA had been allowed to import digital gas metres. He also said the government was trying to segregate the distribution and the transmission system as he acknowledged that losses in certain cases might be more than other countries.
