ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Energy on Tuesday approved the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) (Amendment) Bill, 2017.
The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Senator Sardar Azam Musakhel here at the Parliament House.
The bill would now be sent to the House, and after its passage from the Senate, it would go back to the National Assembly (NA) along with certain recommendations incorporated after its passage from the lower house.
The committee also discussed the implementation status of its recommendations regarding problems being faced by the oil industry in Pakistan. The committee sought responses from the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) chairperson and Oil Marketing Companies (OMC) on issues of malpractices, kickbacks, rebates in furnace oil business and the committee’s recommendation that the Oil Companies Advisory Council (OCAC) should use its power to curb such malpractices.
The committee was told by the OGRA chairperson that the matter of furnace oil had been deregulated and did not fall under the purview of the authority. Senator Taj Afridi told the OGRA chairperson that even if the matter was deregulated, OGRA could still call upon all the relevant stakeholders to sort out the matter and implement the committee’s recommendations.
The meeting also recommended that OMCs must also ensure that lorries were not detained for a long duration. The committee was told that OGRA/OCAC may issue standard operating procedures that would specify the number of days for which oil transporting lorries could be detained.