Bogus bills collection: Lesco officials pocket Rs239m

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Power on Friday grilled the officials of the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (Lesco) over multi-million rupees embezzlement in consumers’ bill payments that some officials of the company had collected through using bogus bank stamps.

Although, this bogus practice continued in Iesco’s billing department for the last four years, but neither the company nor the audit unearthed it. Iesco CEO Shahid Iqbal told the Senate Standing Committee on Power that through the bogus and fake stamps, the electricity bills were collected from power consumers and in a single day, Rs43 million embezzlement was done through this process.

He also admitted that this process has been continuing for last four years. “We have terminated the officers of the finance department, he said and added that power consumers are also involved in this fraud, as they were depositing their bills in revenue officer-I with 30pc discounts in their bills.

Over the last three years, a huge Rs239 millions of embezzlement was done through bogus collection of bills and the head of revenue office of circle-I, CSO Muhammad Naeem, Commercial Assistant Khalid Mehmood, Accounts Assistant Muhammad Rafique, sweeper Waqas Javed and a private person Gul Jamal Khitab were found involved in this fraud. The revenue officer of circle-I Muhammad Naeem was representing the gang, and he has been arrested at Peshawar Airport after he came back from Haj.

He said that now the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is handling and further investigating the case. The Committee Chairman Fida Muhammad Khan asked whether Iesco was asleep when embezzlement of millions of rupees a day was being done by the officials of the company. It means such situation could also be in other distribution companies.

Senator Nauman Wazir Khattak asked the Power Division to direct the all Discos to check their records and provide the details to the committee. Besides, also provide details of such cases in companies for last ten years.

On this, Power Division secretary said that he would release orders to all companies to do so. Wazir further asked why the private sector audit firm did not unearth this fraud. The committee would also discuss this issue with the officials of the Auditor General of Pakistan in its next meeting.

Senator Nauman Wazir said that the companies should not waste money on installation of AMI meters, the solution to control power theft/kundas is Aerial Bundled Cables (ABC). Senator Sirajul Haq suggested why the government is not introducing the pre-paid card system in power sector, as it was successfully working in other countries.