The annual income of National Engineering Services Pakistan (NESPAK) as a result of company's business closure in Afghanistan and falling crude oil prices in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is gradually declining. This was stated by Managing Director (MD) NESPAK, Dr Tahir Masood while briefing a subcommittee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which met here under the chairmanship of Noor Alam Khan to discuss and review audit paras of the Ministry of Energy Power Division for the fiscal year 2017-18.
The MD NESPAK further stated that the company is operating in a number of countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar, and is in a process to get contracts in Nigeria, Georgia and Nepal to expand the operations. He said that during 2018-19 the company applied for 111 contracts and got $1 billion contracts. He said that decline in the annual income of the company was owing to shutdown of Afghan operations and reduction in crude oil prices in the UAE.
The committee while showing serious anger over the non-compliance of the past directives of the panel by the Ministry of Energy, Power Division, said if the officials couldn't follow the directives, the panel will take appropriate action against the concerned officials. The panel directed the Power Division to submit a report to the panel within one week after implementing the past directives of the committee.
The panel also directed the officials concerned to appoint permanent heads of National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) and Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO). The committee members said it is astonishing to know that two top attached departments of Power Division have been functional without permanent managing directors (MD) for the past two-and-a-half-year.
Member Committee Syed Naveed Qamar said that Power Division is pretending to show that these departments don't need permanent heads and joint secretary can run all the affairs. The secretary Power Division while trying to defend the ad-hocism in his ministry said that under the acting charge of joint secretaries, NTDC and PEPCO have performed very well, but the chairman committee asked the officials of the Auditor General of Pakistan to include an audit objection against the secretary Power Division on non-appointment of regular heads of the two organizations.
Member committee Shahida Akhtar said that Power Division was even not ready to share the name of a lineman involved in power theft, adding that the employees of power distribution companies are bringing up new methods of power theft to their facilitators. Meanwhile, another sub-committee of PAC which met under the chairmanship of Rana Tanvir Hussain expressed helplessness on chronic audit paras against Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) and Utility Stores Corporation (USC).
"Being a politician our job is to streamline the public institutes directly related with the welfare of the public," Khawaja Muhammad Asif said, adding institutes like PSL and Utility Stores Corporation (USC) are not national assets but national liabilities. He said the USC is a failed concept and should immediately be privatized.
"According to the State Bank figures, these institutes are giving a loss of Rs 1.4 trillion every year and if we get rid of them the low-income people can be provided a little relief," Khawaja Asif said. Secretary Industries and Production Aamir Ashraf Khawaja informed the committee that the PSL and USC are huge liabilities and the government is working hard to turn around both of them.
Khawaja Asif said these institutes are white elephants and they should be locked down, adding turning around these institutions is not a solution of the problem but part of the problem. Former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, another member of the committee, remarked that reviewing 25 years old audit paras is a futile exercise and wastage of time.
"It's a mockery of the system that today sitting at this highest platform we are discussing people who are no more alive," he said. "We are helpless, we can do something if paras of present time are brought in front of us," Rana Tanvir Hussain said. Concluding the meeting, he remarked that the USC is needed to be reviewed in detail; therefore, the officials must come prepared in the next meeting.