A sub committee of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Petroleum investigating into violation of rules for the issuance of licenses for 466 CNG stations despite a ban on new licenses since 2008 had given two weeks time to the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) to submit complete details to ascertain the facts.
The meeting of the sub-committee was held under the Chairmanship of Sardar Talib Hasan Nakai.
The committee members expressed grave concern over the issuance of licenses and said that the authority had violated the rules. OGRA had issued 306 licenses to establish new CNG stations during fiscal year 2009-10 and 170 licenses in year 2010-11 despite a ban by the government in 2008 due to severe gas shortage in the country.
After the surfacing of the alleged corruption in the grant of licenses, the government had sent Chairman OGRA Tauqeer Sadiq on forced leave for three months which ended on August 28, 2011. It was later extended as an inquiry is being conducted by the government against him.
The meeting was informed that the ban was imposed after the directives of the caretaker Prime Minister in February 2008.
When the members asked who sent the summary for the ban, OGRA officials expressed their ignorance.
Additional Secretary Ministry of Petroleum Naeem Malik said that the ministry briefed the premier about over all gas availability in 2008 in which gas shortages were mentioned and after the Prime Minister issued directives for imposing ban on new licenses. The committee was informed that the Cabinet Division dealt with OGRA, while the role of Petroleum Ministry was related to policy issues.
The committee directed OGRA to submit all the relevant record regarding the issuance of illegal licenses of CNG stations before it within two weeks for their perusal so that the committee could fix responsibility against those officials who violated the ban policy.
The committee was informed in the last meeting that former Prime Minister had imposed a ban on new provisional license for installation of CNG stations. However, there was no ban on the extension of provisional licenses and their conversion into marketing licenses.
