A parliamentary panel was informed on Wednesday that National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigating Agency (FIA) were probing 124 corruption related matters in Utility Stores Corporation (USC) of Pakistan. Briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Industries and Production, Managing Director (MD) USC Waseem Mukhtar said that 121 cases were being probed by FIA while 3 by NAB.
The meeting, which was chaired by Senator Hidayatullah, informed that the agencies were investigating the corruption related cases from 1991 to 2015. The MD USC and Chairman Board of Director (BoD) of USC assured the committee that the organisation would provide all necessary details to the investigating agencies so that those responsible for embezzlements must be held accountable.
The committee also directed the officials to delay the installation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software till the committee allows it. As per committee members, the USC requires transparent system to run the affairs and not install ERP software. Briefing the participants Chairman USC BoD Jamal Siddiquie said that the system was being installed at 1,000 USC stores in major cities with significant sale volumes to avert financial embezzlements and it would cost Rs 640 million.
Senator Azam Khan Swati while showing serious concerns over the financial losses in USC said that it was a leading retail chain in Asia while regional chains like Metro and others are making significant profits. He said that financial losses in USC were due to mismanagement, corruption and inefficiency of the relevant officials.
According to Swati, the USC could have earned billions of rupees of profit as it was involved in retail business but corruption was a major hurdle. He vowed to expose the corrupt practices in the national entity. Senator Kalsoom Parveen said that as far as corruption related matters in Balochistan province were concerned, the investigating agencies must also consider the law and order situation in districts like Awaran, entry of government employees other than security forces was not possible till 2015. Explaining her point she said that USC outlets were also set up in those areas where government officials were unable to enter, while daily wager employees in those areas could not be made accountable as they leave the job after finding some better one.
She recommended that USC employees in Balochsitan province should be made permanent, adding that the step would minimise sense of deprivation among the people and they would honestly perform their duties which would reduce corruption. The FIA officials informed the participants that 48 corruption cases were under investigation in Punjab, 56 in Sindh, 17 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 3 in Balochsitan. An estimated amount of Rs 704 million had been misused by the officials in different cases from 1991 to 2015, the agency officials added.