The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has denied wrong doings in the issuance of natural gas sales license to a gas company Gaseous Distribution Company Limited and clarified that the license has been issued after due diligence and was in line with OGRA laws.
In a statement issued by OGRA, its spokesman has denied the connotations given in contradictory news item regarding the issue of natural gas sales license to Gaseous Distribution Company and clarified that the license was issued after due diligence. Certain elements from within the organisation having ulterior motives were deliberately trying to malign the organisation and misleading some segments of the media. It is pertinent to note that the authority has issued the licenses unanimously and after detail deliberation. The conditional license granted to GDC is based on the same parameters as were applicable to a similar gas marketing company in Punjab.
The OGRA spokesman clarified that Gaseous Distribution Company – GDC (formerly Pak Gas Distribution Company) applied on March 30, 2016 for grant of license to carry out the regulated activity of the sale of natural gas to the CNG stations located in Sindh. The license was issued after fulfilling all pre-requisites, OGRA conducted public hearing as per law on December 14, 2016 in Karachi. The whole license process took almost 9 months as the company applied to OGRA in March 2016 and the license was granted in December 2016 which clearly indicated that the license was issued to the company after thorough process, in-house deliberations and after meeting all pre-requisites, without any urgency at all.
All valid objections raise by the interveners were duly emphasized and the authority ensured that the issues be satisfactorily addressed by the applicant. The primary reason that the license was granted a day after the applicant addressed the objection of PSO and duly changed its name from Pak Gas Distribution Company to Gaseous Distribution Company, duly registered by SECP, without changing any other particulars of its earlier application of March 2016 and is the fact that Member Gas Amir Naseem was retiring on December 22, 2016 after completion of his term.
The authority being judicious and conscious of the fact that after a thorough process, fulfilling all the legal requirements the applicant is entitled to grant a conditional license for one year which shall be effective after fulfilment of certain terms and condition of the license. Therefore authority after due process in a transparent manner issued the license as per law. Needless to say that OGRA has been dutiful in discharging its duties.