ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Resources has found the posting of incumbent managing director of the Pakistan State Oil illegal and asked the government to replace him.

“The acting managing director PSO who is very junior and is currently under FIA and NAB investigation should be removed immediately,” Senator Mohammad Yousaf wrote to the prime minister and relevant government agencies on behalf of the committee.

The Senate committee observed that a person on the exit control list because of investigations by the FIA and National Accountability Bureau should not be allowed to run a company with an annual turnover of more than Rs1.5 trillion.

It urged the government to expedite process for the appointment of a regular managing director and give preference to an officer from within the company.

The committee deplored violation of a decision of the PSO’s board of directors for not appointing such a questionable officer as head of the department against whom an inquiry was under process by an external agency, and recommended that the decision should immediately be implemented in letter and in spirit.

It wrote: “The committee took strong notice on continuing advertisement of Green XL Plus Diesel by the PSO and hence deceiving the consumer by not using additives in the diesel.”

The committee suspected strong manipulation of product sales to selected dealers before monthly price revisions to benefit a mafia at a cost of billions of rupees to the PSO and ordered a sub-committee to investigate the matter.

In its final report, the committee said Petroleum Secretary Abid Saeed had reported assignment of acting charge of managing director to Amjad Pervez Janjua with the approval of the prime minister for three months and confirmed that his continuation for more than a year in the same post was without any approval.

The committee reported that the incumbent PSO chief was not senior most general manager in terms of experience and length of service and in fact a number of senior general managers having 25-35 years of experience in the company had been neglected to give favour to a junior.

The petroleum secretary confirmed that criteria for appointment of the PSO chief was not followed, but said Mr Janjua had “profound experience as chief executive officer of Asian Petroleum Company” – a small subsidiary of PSO.

He, however, contended that the petroleum ministry “can appoint any person on acting charge basis or can even give a look-after charge to any general manager”.

The Senate committee reported that “except for the initial three months, the whole period of the acting managing director’s stay in the office was illegal and in violation of approval of the prime minister”.

The chairman of the committee also brought on record a communication by M/s Ferguson hired by the federal government as independent consultant to scrutinise prospective candidates for public sector organisations, saying “the acting managing director, Amjad Pervez Janjua, does not qualify for the post of MD as advertised in the newspapers”.

The committee noted that Mr Janjua, along with others, was being investigated by the FIA and placed on the ECL. The petroleum secretary told the committee that the ministry had issued instructions to the PSO management to extend full cooperation to the investigation agencies.

The report said the committee had come to know that during the last five days of August, September and October last year before the increase of prices of petroleum products, millions of litres of diesel and petrol were sold to selective dealers only to benefit them at the cost of billions of rupees to the national exchequer.

The acting managing director reported that it was done to avoid shortage of petroleum products in the market, but the committee sought full record of these deals and decided to constitute a sub-committee soon to investigate the matter.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2014