Govt removes acting MD Sui Northern for inflated bills

ISLAMABAD: The PTI government rolled the head of acting Managing Director of Sui Northern Amer Tufail on account of inflated bills that end gas consumers got mainly because of the pressure factor. In his place, Mehmood Zia has been appointed as acting managing director.

The causality of acting Managing Director Amer Tufail is the third in row as Prime Minister Imran Khan, earlier on January 08, 2019, removed the managing directors of both the Sui Northern and Sui Southern after receiving the report of the fact-finding committee on gas crisis that hit the country the most on December 12 for 24 hours.

Addition Secretary Sher Afgan, spokesman of the Petroleum Division, also confirmed saying that the Board of Directors of Sui Northern met on Wednesday and removed acting MD Amer Tufail and appointed a new acting MD--Mehmood Zia.

To a question, he said that for regular appointment of the managing director, the advertisement has been issued to the national dailies and after exhausting the laid down procedure, the appointment for regular managing director will be made.

The Board of Directors of SNGPL held a meeting on Wednesday in Lahore and decided to replace the acting MD of the gas company Amer Tufail in line with PTI government directive. Federal Information

Minister Fawad Chaudhry, earlier on Tuesday after the federal cabinet meeting announced that the Cabinet has decided to reimburse Rs2.5 billion to gas consumers who had received inflated bills last month. The minister, in the same breathe, had also revealed saying that cabinet decided to take action against responsible for sending inflated bills. So the board of directors of the Sui Northern, in line with the cabinet meeting directive, replaced Amer Tufail with another acting MD Mehmood Zia.

Mehmood Zia is said to be technically sound as he is basically a mechanical engineer and is well versed with distribution, construction, operation and gas pipelines system as he owns the experience of 31 years in the said department in the gas company. Mehmood Zia was earlier rendering his services as central general manager (distribution North).

In the earlier meeting of the Board of Directors of Sui Northern held on March 9, there was a serious move to remove Managing Director Amer Tufail, but it was averted because of intervention of the Petroleum Division.

The move was kicked off by some influential PTI stalwarts on the pretext of inflated gas bills the domestic gas consumers got. The Board meeting of March 9 reaffirmed their faith in Amer Tufail to continue as acting managing director, but after 11 days, the Board changed its mind toeing the government directives removed Amer Tufail on Wednesday.

Afgan said that the government will reimburse the amount close to Rs03 billion to end consumers against the inflated bills 3.4 million consumers got three months of December, January and February purely on account of pressure factor.

Sui Northern has already started the process of passing refund to the gas consumers who got inflated gas bills and in the first phase the gas company has refunded Rs50 million in gas billing to 11,250 consumers, he said.