Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was told on Tuesday that 170
employees of the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) had
been found guilty of submitting fake or forged documents during
scrutiny, DawnNews reported.
Audit officials,
during a briefing on the audit report of the petroleum ministry, told
the committee that out of the total 170 employees who were found guilty,
five were sent on forced retirement with complete incentives, 18 were
demoted to lower grades, whereas, 80 employees were facing cases in the
court.
The committee was informed that the documents of
15,000 OGDCL employees were scrutinised. The managing director of the
company told the committee that some of the employees had forged their
documents altering their dates of birth, grades or divisions in their
educational documents.
In his initial response to the
report, PAC Chairman Khursheed Shah opted to sweep the matter under the
carpet, questioning the audit officials why they were pushing the
matters of employees, but later deferred the para after the officials
opposed him.
The audit officials said that ignoring the matter
would send a wrong signal to other institutions. Sardar Ashiq Gopang, a
committee member, said that criminal cases should be filed against these
employees.
The committee was also informed that the
national exchequer had suffered a loss of Rs370 million in connection
with the annual examination of CNG stations. According to the report
presented by audit officials, the loss was incurred due to the
negligence of Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority.
Subsequently, the PAC directed the government to submit a complete record of the CNG sector.
Shah
said that the circular debt has hit a mark of Rs500 billion and that
new government will have to pay Rs500bn to clear the circular debt.
