HASCOL Petroleum corruption: Senate panel summons SECP, FIA, SBP

ISLAMABAD: The Senate’s Standing Committee on Petroleum on Monday expressed serious concern over the massive corruption scandal of multi-billion rupees in Hascol Petroleum by its top management and summoned SECP, State Bank, Ministry of Petroleum, FIA and other relevant departments in its next meeting.

The committee met in the Parliament House on Monday with Senator Abdul Qadir in the chair and discussed this huge corruption in this public listed company in which tens of billions of rupees of investors had sunk.

Senator Afnan Ullah Khan said that the management of Hascol had made Rs7.5 billion of fake purchase orders while its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) has done fraud of Rs8 billion in oil. This company has made accumulative fraud of around Rs75 billion. He asked the chair to summon the relevant investigative bodies to know their progress in the case.

Senator Mohsin Aziz said that this committee should hold a combined meeting with the Senate’s Standing Committee on Finance and review the case and progress.

Senator Saadia Abbasi said it would be appropriate that the committee summoned all the relevant ministries, SECP, SBP, FIA to know its status and, if required, ask for stern action as it involved huge losses of investors. The committee unanimously decided to summon these ministries and departments and hold a one-point agenda meeting in a few days.

The committee was briefed on the steps taken to promote foreign investment in the oil and gas sector in the country. The secretary petroleum informed that the Pak-Russia pipeline would be 1,040-km-long. This will cost 2.25 to 2.5 billion dollars and is being built under G2G arrangement.

The standing committee was informed that there is a GIDC of Rs790 billion out of which till April 2021, Rs321 billion had been recovered and deposited in the national exchequer. The remaining Rs473 billion was to be recovered from various parties. The committee was further informed that there was a high court stay on the recovery of Rs356 billion. The CNG sector has also been given a GIDC waiver of Rs50 billion. The standing committee postponed the rest of the agenda till the next meeting.