Issuance of illegal licences for CNG stations: body for action against officials

A parliamentary panel has recommended to the government that some officials of Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA), other relevant ministries and departments should be taken to task on issuance of licenses for 462 CNG stations after 2008.
According to an official report, the Sub-Committee of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Resources has recommended this during its previous meetings and observed that the ban on the issuance of any kind of No-Objection Certificate (NOC) by OGRA, imposed on PM directives did not need any clarification, whereas OGRA''s officials have been reverted back to Cabinet Division for further clarification on the directives.
The report was presented before the National Assembly''s Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Resources, which met here on Thursday with Sardar Talib Hussain Nakai in the chair.
The committee decided with consensus to launch criminal proceedings against the former chairman OGRA as well as his allies, who were allegedly involved in the millions of rupee scam.
The committee is probing the cases of CNG connections/relocations granted by OGRA after February 6, 2008 when the Prime Minister banned issuance of licenses for new CNG stations till further orders.
The committee decided that each and every person involved in malpractices, irregularities and exaggerated from their authority should be taken to the task as well as the role of Petroleum Ministry, Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) and Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) would be made part of the process for issuance of NOC to install CNG station.
The panel split over the certain issues, when a member of the committee Shehnaz Sheikh expressed disagreement with the chair and demanded to hand over the issue to National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for further probe, while the chair was of the view that further proceeding in this regard should be forwarded to Cabinet Division, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources as well as the custodian of the house Dr Fehmida Mirza to allow further debate in the house.
Former chairman Ogra, Tauqeer Sadiq, who was brother-in-law of senior Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader, allegedly approved more than 462 new CNG connections brushing aside the imposition of ban on new connections by Prime Minister Office.
Later on, when the scam surfaced, Tauqeer Sadiq was sent on forced leave for three months and later he resigned from his portfolio. However, member gas OGRA, Mansoor Muzaffar admitted the malpractices of former chairman OGRA and his aides for illegal approval of CNG connection.
The committee wrote in its report that OGRA interpreted the directives in its own way to facilitate its favorites as the issuance of NOC by OGRA was subject to purchase of land, clearance from different departments except the purchase of machinery and the procedure was not followed in its true letter and spirit.