Influential debtors of Overseas Employment Corporation (OEC)’ Travels Division have turned deaf ear to official notices for repaying debts as despite the passage of three weeks since OEC MD’s constituted two-member committee and issued notices to defaulters, the public body has succeeded in recovering only Rs 0.3 million out of total outstanding dues amounting to Rs 8.3 million, Pakistan Today has learnt.
OEC Managing Director Saeed Ahmed Shaikh had constituted two-member committee to recover the outstanding dues influential defaulters including a number of former and incumbent ministers, parliamentarians and bureaucrats. “We have recovered only Rs 0.3 million in last 20 days … influential defaulters are not paying heed to the corporation’s official requests,” said an official of the corporation seeking not to be named.
He said that the main defaulter federal minister for religious affairs, Syed Khurshid Shah owed Rs 1.8 million and had not paid back even a single penny. The official of the OEC said that the Ministry of Human Resource Development (the mother organisation of the corporation) was considering disciplinary action against those officials who were responsible for issuing air tickets on credits without payment. “Umar Farooq, former manager, OEC has retired but the ministry and OEC MD have decided to not relieve him till he recovers credits given in his tenure,” the source said, adding that the ministry had imposed a ban on issuing tickets on credit.
The source said during recent investigations, it was also revealed that former Senior Assistant Manager OEC’s Travels Division Shakir (currently working as Assistant Manager) recovered some amount from debtors in 2005 but did not deposit it in the accounts of the corporation. “Now, on admitting his mistake, the corporation has pardoned Shakir,” the source added. The source further said the ministry was likely to transfer incumbent OEC Executive Director Zafar Ali from the corporation to the ministry as ‘he being the head of the division could not safeguard corporation’s interests and granted air tickets to influential individuals carelessly in the last few years since his posting as ED.’
Pakistan Today had published a story on September 25, 2011 exposing names of some mighty ministers and bureaucrats who owed debts to the OEC. The official documents reveal that these ‘millionaire’ politicians and bureaucrats purchased air tickets on credit from OEC–currently a subsidiary of the Ministry of Human Resource Development which had been working under the Ministry of Labour and Manpower till latter’s devolution under 18th amendment–but later they did not bother depositing amounts on due dates causing an accumulative loss of Rs 8.3 million to the corporation.
Taking action on Pakistan Today’s report, the Shaikh had issued office order (No.59/2011) on September 27 for recovery of outstanding dues from the defaulters and constituted a two-member committee to look into recovery of outstanding dues of OEC Travels Division.
The names of prominent defaulters (sitting or former) include Syed Khurshid Shah, Dr Farooq Sattar, Rehman Malik, Rehamat Ullah Kakar, Syed Naveed Qamar, Nawabzada Ghazanfar Ali Gul, Raza Hayat Hirraj, Malik Mukhtar Ahmed Awan, Aman Ullah Gichki, Nasir Ali Khan Baloch, Mian M Zaman, Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi, Mir Haji Tareen and Al-Hajj S Qasim Ali Shah and Nisar A Ghumman.
The prominent defaulters of OEC from government officials (retired or in-service) include Malik Asif Hayat former secretary labour and manpower incumbent secretary to President Asif Ali Zardari, Dr Abdul Hameed Janani, Muhib Ali Pulpoto, Umar Morio Ex-DG Board of Emigration and Overseas Employment, Muhammad Riaz DG Customs Intelligence, Maj General (retd) Syed Usman Shah Ex-DG Customs, Tariq Iqbal Puri, M Saeed Mehdi Ex-MD OEC and M Imran Qadir Ex-MD OEC.
