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Please Expose Corrupt Minister Petroleum GOP & his lieutenants
The LNG Mega Scam has tested our wisdom and vigilance, and fortunately we, the people of Pakistan, have not failed!! The dragon of this scam has harmed or swallowed many corporate bodies and professionals, but it is now succumbing under the pressure of media and corporate activism!
After our initial effort to expose this scam, we have extended our hands to recently activated law enforcement agencies and hope they will play their role too!
The following is an attempt to provide a concise summary of the LNG Mega Scam although it is very difficult to decipher a high-tech, white-collar crime sponsored by the Shahid Khaqan Abbasi
It all started by the petroleum ministry through Inter-State Gas Systems (ISGS) who’s MD Mubeen Saulat is now under active investigation by NAB for illegal award of LNG terminal contract to Engro, which is owned by Seith Dawood who is an underhand partner of the so-called rulers of Pakistan.
The background of the scam unfolded when officials of Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) reported to the investigators that they were bypassed as the procuring agency by the ministry when the ministry empowered ISGS to award the LNG terminal contract. SSGC officials further stated that they were forced by the petroleum minister to sign an agreement for payment of the capacity payment of US Dollars 272,000 per day (about 3 crore Rupees per day) to the private terminal company of Engro, which amounts to US Dollars 100 million per year from the taxpayers’ money, irrespective of whether the terminal operates or does not operate to regasify LNG.
SSGC stated that they signed that illicit contract on the promise of the petroleum minister that subsequently PSO would provide them the comfort through an undertaking of bearing the cost of the capacity payments to Engro terminal company. However, PSO management declined to provide the said undertaking to safeguard the interest of their company by quoting legal and technical reasons, to which the minister took an exception and the management had to face his ire. The MD of SSGC who signed the illicit contract is under arrest and will hopefully reveal the related facts to the investigators.
Consequently, PSO was incapacitated by cutting its lifeline payments by the government so that the imminent petrol crises, foreseen and pre-warned by PSO management, could not be prevented. This paved the way for getting rid of the PSO management to carry out the illicit LNG project. Accordingly, the entire top management of PSO was sidelined/ suspended and the Board of PSO was dissolved on the pretense of enquiry into the petrol crisis.
Subsequently, Shahid Islam (a pawn) was placed as MD-PSO and was very unusually given the powers of the PSO Board by the government for a short time (on hit and run basis) to illegally import the LNG ships worth multi-million dollars in defiance of all rules and regulations of Pakistan and in absence of the company’s Board and top management.
Shahid Islam is the same person who was CFO of PIA when the present petroleum minister was Chairman of PIA. Shahid Islam is a co-founder of Air Blue and remained jail mate of Shahid Abbasi (petroleum minister) when they were arrested on the same charges of irregularities and fraud in PIA. Later on he fled Pakistan to escape from various fraud investigations and returned in 2013 after Shahid Abbasi had taken charge of the petroleum ministry.
PSO as a public sector company is strictly required under PPRA rules to undertake an open and transparent bidding (giving a fair and equal chance to all prospective bidders) for import of any product and they had strictly been following that principle for all imports of petroleum products. However Shahid Islam imported several LNG ships worth millions of dollars on very expensive rates without bidding from Qatar Gas (specifically a private company called Q3). The procuring agency (in this case PSO) is required under the law to place procuring documents for such high value import transactions on the websites of the Company (PSO) and NAB. PSO has also defaulted on this legal obligation.
In reward, Shahid Islam was granted a hefty salary package as MD of GHPL by the minister, which was not approved by the Board of GHPL. Shahid Islam also took the proposal of the ministry to the Board of GHPL for construction of second LNG terminal through GHPL, but the Board rejected it and two Directors of the Board resigned when they were pressurized by the government through Shahid Islam to approve that illicit project.
Similarly in order to avoid regulatory checks and oversight over illegal import of LNG, the Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) was incapacitated by not appointing its members and by sending its Chairman on forced leave by the government. However, Chairman OGRA got himself restored through the court but he was kept incapacitated by the government by not appointing the members of OGRA required to complete the quorum for the regulatory decision-making.
Seeing what happened to others, the Board and MD of Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Company Limited (SNGPL) refused to sign a similar agreement and their MD was consequently fired by the government. All members of the top management of SNGPL refused the offers made to them by the government one after the other to become MD of the Company (in line with the government’s stick and carrot policy to implement the illicit projects). Although the MD of SNGPL got himself restored through the court, he had to ultimately resign under tremendous pressure of the government.
The regulator (OGRA) has expressed its inability to determine the price of LNG because it has been illegally procured and sold by PSO. Therefore, OGRA has directed PSO to furnish a certificate duly verified by the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Resources that it complied with all laws and regulations in importing and selling the LNG, and also furnish the invoices of the LNG ships illegally imported by PSO duly approved/ vetted by the petroleum ministry as PSO has stated that it imported LNG on unlawful instructions of the ministry although it did not have the mandate for LNG import without bidding. OGRA has also asked for the government-verified invoices of illegal sale of LNG by PSO (without LNG sales license and without sale price fixed by the regulator) and by gas companies (without getting the sale price approved by OGRA).
PSO and the gas companies have stated that they made the illegal sales on the instructions of the petroleum ministry based on a so-called “provisional price” advised to them by the petroleum ministry although the ministry had no regulatory powers to fix the price of LNG which was the OGRA’s role.
The ministry is refusing to approve the invoices of illegal import and illegal sale of LNG, as required by OGRA, in view of the ongoing NAB investigations into the LNG Mega scam.
Consequently, LNG cannot be billed and its cost cannot be recovered; and the customers to whom the LNG has been provided on the government’s orders are enjoying unlimited credit (including the fertilizer business owned by Seith Hussain Dawood who also owns Engro LNG terminal receiving US Dollars 272,000 per day without operating).
As a most shameful act, the government has appointed the manager of the small notorious one-year old Engro terminal (Sheikh Imran) as MD of PSO. PSO has an extensive network of terminals across the country in addition to 3600 retail outlets and leadership in oil marketing business, earning more than a trillion Rupees sales revenue!! The salary package granted to Sheikh Imran by the government is unprecedented in the public sector of Pakistan. Media has disclosed his Rupees 6 million (Rs. 60 Lakh) per month package, but the petroleum minister is quoting his salary on TV as 24 Lakh per month which is just one element of his salary. This is in accordance with the minister’s track record of information manipulation. He has been stating on TV that the tolling fee being paid to the Engro terminal is 66 cents per mmbtu. When the record of payment was shown to him, he confessed that Engro is being paid a tolling fee @ 147 cents per mmbtu and promised to bring it down to 66 cents in future. In comparison, a bid received by the government for the tolling fee for the second LNG terminal is 49 cents per mmbtu!
Initially the petroleum minister out rightly denied that the LNG cargo had arrived in Pakistan and stated that it would arrive after signing of the treaty between the governments of Pakistan and Qatar. When the media showed evidence in this regard, the minister stated that the cargo was imported by the private sector. When PSO’s import documents were shown on TV, he confessed that it was imported by PSO but paid by the private sector (now an outstanding payment of more than rupees 20 billion against the imported LNG is in the news!). When the LC opened by PSO was shown, the minister stated that the cargo was imported by PSO based on proper treaty between Pakistan and Qatar. When the illegal spot purchase deal was disclosed, the minister had to confess that a proper long-term agreement between the governments is not in place, for which he keeps on giving dates! It is unclear how a government-to-government treaty can be signed for import of LNG from a private company in Qatar! The cargoes in question have been imported from Q3, which has private shareholdings of Conoco Philips (USA), Mitsui (Japan) and Qatar Petroleum. Now the minister must be counting on the customary long delays in investigations, particularly against the rulers and their cronies!
This can only happen in Pakistan in the 21st Century!!!
Posted by admin in Nawaz Dangerous, Nawaz Sharif & Kashmiri Biradari, Nawaz Sharif Dangerous Man, NAWAZ SHARIF DICTATOR, NAWAZ SHARIF FAMILY TURPITUDE, NAWAZ SHARIF LOAN SCAM, Nawaz Sharif Malcontent, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, Nawaz Sharif's Petrol Hoarding Money Making Scam on August 5th, 2015
Capital suggestion
May 11, 2013: A total of 14.8 million voters voted for PML-N candidates; the PML-N bagging nearly 33 percent of the popular votes. The PML-N’s current tally stands at 147 general seats, 35 reserved and 6 minorities for a total of 188.
June 5, 2013: Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif took oath as the 18th prime minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
1st World Record:
On March 26, 2015, the first-ever shipment of 147,000 cubic feet of arrived at the Karachi anchorage. Initially, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources was not willing to disclose either the price paid or the buyer (claiming that the private sector has imported). Later on, the media discovered that the payment for the first shipment was made by Pakistan State Oil (PSO). Later on, the media was told that the price paid was $8 per mmBTU (FOB).
As per data maintained by Waterborne Energy, Inc the price of spot LNG stood at around $6.90 per mmBTU. For the record, we overpaid around $3 million for our first shipment – and along the way created a new World Record of buying the most expensive LNG in that timeframe.
Admittedly, the Government of Pakistan is obligated to abide by the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority Rules (PPRA) under which the government has to call in international tenders. Admittedly, international players can play their own games and overcharge our government. The best for the government, therefore, would be to get out of the LNG buying business and let Pakistan’s private sector buy-and negotiate-its own LNG purchases.
For the record, since that first shipment PSO has bought an additional six shipments and overpaid around $18 million.
2nd World Record:
On May 5, 2015, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif inaugurated the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Power Park, Pakistan’s first-ever solar power generation plant. The first 100MW project is owned by the Government of Punjab (through Bank of Punjab) and put up in record time by the turnkey contractor Tebian Electric Apparatus Xinjiang SunOasis Co.
Admittedly, the government of Punjab was in a rush and when your customer is in a rush contractors charge you more – a lot more. For the record, New Mexico, USA, is buying solar power at 8.5 cents/kWh; Andhra Pradesh at 10.28 cents/kWh; Brazil at 8.7 cents/kWh and Dubai at 5.98 cents/kWh.
Lo and behold, our very own National Electric Power Regulatory Authority’s determination of Upfront Generation Tariff for Solar PV Power Plants is 18.28 cents/kWh (Years 1-10) – our 2ndWorld Record.
3rd World Record:
On June 4, 2015, the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metrobus was inaugurated. The 22.6 kilometre Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system was completed in a record time of 15 months at a reported cost of Rs44.94 billion.
Admittedly, the Government of Pakistan was in a rush and when your customer is in a rush contractors charge you more – a lot more. As per data maintained by the New York-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) here’s the per kilometre costs: Ahmedabad (India) BRT $2.4 million per km; Changzhou (China) BRT $4 million per km; Beijing (China) $4.8 million per km; Paris (France) $7 million per km; Istanbul (Turkey) $8.8 million per km.
Lo and behold, Lahore BRT was built at a cost of $11 million per km. On June 4, 2015, we created a new World Record; Rawalpindi-Islamabad BRT at $20 million per km.
Who said: “Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in the world that just don’t add up.”
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad.
Still, Frank conceded, nuclear power plants are costly to build. As an example, he cited a new plant at Hinkley Point in southwestern England, which is expected to cost $27 billion by the time it’s finished. Its operating costs rise because, like all nuclear plants, it can’t be covered by commercial insurance.
But like all nuclear plants, it will run 24 hours a day and so, Frank calculates, it will be only 75 percent more expensive per megawatt of energy to build and operate than a solar generator.
Into this equation, Frank included the generators powered by fossil fuels that will be needed to take up the slack for the inevitable idle periods for wind farms and solar generators. He calls them “avoided capacity costs” that wouldn’t exist if the alternative energy plants hadn’t been built in the first place.
Therefore, Frank wrote, it would take four wind farms or seven solar generators to replace one coal-fired plant generating similar output. Solar generation costs $189,000 to match 1 megawatt per year generated by coal, and wind power is nearly as expensive. Hydropower, he said, provides a net savings, but only a small one.
Frank’s paper concluded that the winner in this comparison of zero-emission power generation is nuclear power because, despite initial costs, it is greatly efficient and operates non-stop.
By Andy Tully of Oilprice.com
Posted by admin in Afghanistan-Land of Backstabbers, Army School Massacre Planners RAW India, HIJACKING OF MISSING PERSON MOVEMENT BY FOREIGN SPIES, INDIA MACHINATIONS TO DESTROY CHINA, INTERNATIONAL MEDDLERS, ISI-IMPREGNABLE PAKISTANS WALL, ISI-THE BEST INTELLIGENCE AGENCY IN THE WORLD, MAKAAR HINDUS, Nawaz Sharif Malcontent, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, NDS-Afghan Intelligence, RAW Trained Suicide Church Bombers, RAW-Mossad Axis, RAW-MOSSAD NEXUS, Zionist Enemy on May 4th, 2015
“India has always used Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan. India has over the years been financing problems in Pakistan”. Chuck Hagel
It is an irrefutable reality that India’s prime intelligence agency RAW is leading terrorist activities in Baluchistan by using the soil of Afghanistan, harbouring and financing terrorists and projecting them as freedom fighters. This covert support is going on since 2002 and several other foreign agencies have also been supplementing RAW’s efforts. RAW had created Mukti Bahini, a militant wing of Awami League in former East Pakistan in late 1960s and in 1971 established 59 training camps all along the border to train, equip and launch them to sever eastern wing from West Pakistan. After accomplishing its mission, in 1973 RAW was assigned the task of subverting Sindh with the help of Sindhi nationalist parties. In conjunction with KGB and KHAD, RAW fully supported Baloch insurgency from 1973 to 1978; and again destabilised Pakistan in 1980s by supporting Al-Zulfiqar, a terrorist wing of PPP.
After the creation of MQM in 1984, RAW established links with the new party leadership and is still guiding and assisting it. Over one million weapons have been inducted in port city by RAW and other agencies as well as NATO to make the economic hub centre restive. Startling disclosures have been made by two recently arrested MQM terrorists Junaid and Tahir Lamba who revealed that RAW has been imparting training to MQM workers since 1996 at Dheradun to destabilize Karachi.
RAW is arming, training and funding banned terrorist groups Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), Baloch Republican Army (BRA), Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) and Baluchistan Lashkar headed by runaway Baloch rebel leaders. Pattern is similar to its support to Mukti Bahini in 1971. RAW established 9 training camps along Afghan-Pakistan border in 2003 to train Baloch dissidents. Later, in league with CIA, MI-6 and Afghan NDS, it set up 60 training camps in interior Baluchistan. Shamsi airbase in Baluchistan (100 miles away from Iran’s eastern border and same distance from Afghanistan’s southern border) was also used by CIA to foment insurgency and to assist Jundollah group.
Besides sabotage and subversion, Indo-US-Western propaganda machinery has been eulogising the heroics of the Baloch insurgents by projecting them as seekers of their socio-politico-economic rights. Atrocities of insurgents against non-Baloch settlers in Baluchistan, forcing over 100,000 to migrate, blatant target killings of pro-Pakistan Baloch and government officials, teachers/professors, Hazaras, kidnapping for ransom, blowing up gas pipelines, electric pylons/grids, railway lines, attacking trains, security forces, challenging the writ of the state, seeking foreign support to break up Pakistan, all these undesirable acts were looked the other way. No objections were raised by local and foreign media when exiled Baloch leaders sought intervention by India, or the US or NATO or the UN to help them liberate Baluchistan.
Conversely, counter actions of the law enforcement agencies (LEA) to safeguard territorial integrity of the state are projected as violation of human rights. The government is also described in poor light having robbed the resources of the province.
a. Successive governments have kept Baluchistan deprived and backward and are stealing Baloch mineral resources.
b. Punjab Army is anti-Baloch and has turned Baluchistan into a colony.
c. Army is carrying out genocide of Baloch.
d. Over 18000 Baloch men and women have gone missing.
e. Agencies and FC are behind forced disappearances of Baloch and kill and dump policy to suppress Baloch people.
CIA, MI-6, RAW, Mossad, Afghan NDS in unison have unremittingly utilized all sorts of covert and overt methods to foment unrest in Baluchistan. Grievances of the Baloch and the issue of missing persons/enforced disappearances and ‘kill and dump policy’ have been relentlessly played up for many years and in this several Pak TV channels, journalists, HRW and human rights activists have been promoting the foreign agenda to discredit intelligence agencies and Frontier Corps Baluchistan. Mama Qadeer who also supports the separatist agenda was lionised by certain TV channels particularly Geo. His long march from Quetta to Karachi and Islamabad from October 2013 till February 2014 in protest of non-recovery of missing persons was given wide publicity. There are hundreds of foreign funded NGOs promoting the cause of Baloch separatists and pursuing foreign agendas.
Grievances of the Baloch and the issue of missing persons/enforced disappearances and ‘kill and dump policy’ have been relentlessly played up for many years and in this several Pak TV channels, journalists, HRW and human rights activists have been promoting the foreign agenda to discredit intelligence agencies and Frontier Corps Balochistan. Mama Qadeer who also supports the separatist agenda was lionised by certain TV channels particularly Geo. His long march from Quetta to Karachi and Islamabad from October 2013 till February 2014 in protest of non-recovery of missing persons was given wide publicity. There are hundreds of foreign funded NGOs promoting the cause of Baloch separatists and pursuing foreign agendas.
RAW keeps changing tactics in rapid succession. A year back it hyphenated Pakistan with ISIS/Jehadis through ‘guided’ and misleading interviews. Uploading of a notorious terrorist Allah Nazar’s interview on a RAW-managed Indian propaganda website on ‘Online’ further confirmed the information at hand that India has been training, financing, arming and projecting terrorists to destabilize Pakistan and Afghanistan”. The thrust of the interview revolved around unproven allegations against Pakistan’s LEAs, intelligence agencies and Pak-China relations. Purpose behind it was to subtly gather the sympathies of civil society besides confusing things as the website introduced Allah Nazar as a so-called freedom movement leader fighting against Jehadi elements and ISIS.
Allah Nazar is a terrorist hailing from Awaran, Baluchistan as established after thorough perusal and verification of record of his activities spread over a period of many years. Pak agencies have gathered sufficient evidence which suggests that this person has been enjoying direct support of RAW for committing heinous crimes against humanity viz. killing of men, women and children, attacks on women university students and members of LEAs and blowing up of electric pylons as well as gas pipelines. These insane and murderous acts are being projected as deeds of a liberation movement.
It may be recalled that Allah Nazar and his group BLF continued to harass local population in Awaran, Punjgur and Kech districts for a number of years. However, he fled from the area on arrival of forces during earthquake relief activities in September 2013. People of the area felt immensely relieved after the arrival of forces and on their large scale relief efforts. Since then, Allah Nazar and his likeminded accomplices have fled to other areas known only to Indian RAW from where they are carrying out terrorist activities. Chinese working in Gwadar and other parts of Baluchistan have also been targeted by Baloch terrorists. Besides Allah Nazar, other Baloch rebel leaders living a luxurious life in exile since 2006 are Brahamdagh Bugti and Mehran Marri in Geneva, Hyrbyar Marri and Mir Suleman Khan Daud in London, Dr Khaliq Baloch in Washington.
Most sordid aspect of these anti-Pakistani activities is that they are not only Pakistan-specific but they also target Chinese interests. India is using terrorist elements in Baluchistan to threaten Chinese interests in the development of China-Pak Economic Corridor. The ink on the historic agreement had barely dried up when western media and foreign paid NGOs in Pakistan sprang into action and started drumming up Baluchistan insurgency. Sabeen Mahmud heading 2F NGO in Karachi hosted a seminar focussing on disappearance of Baloch nationalists and to demonise ISI/FC. This topic was initially scheduled in LUMS Lahore, but was cancelled on the intervention of Punjab government. Unfortunate Sabeen was purposely murdered by the schemers on the same day when she was driving home to earn sympathies of the public and to make ISI a suspect.
The next event which coincided with China President’s visit was the interview of Brahamdagh Bugti from Geneva which was given wide publicity by western media. His focal point was his fears about China-Pakistan corridor, which in his jaundiced view was aimed at colonizing Baluchistan. He urged his followers to resist. Late Nawab Akbar Bugti had also started the insurgency in 2004 on the plea that development of Gwadar would be against the interests of the Baloch. Rights activists also stepped up their propaganda accusing security forces of carrying out extra judicial killings of separatists in Baluchistan. Hussain Haqqani wrote an insidious article in Wall Street Journal in this timeframe, while Tariq Fateh sent anti-Pakistan tweets from Delhi. Activation of Baluchistan card indicates the nervousness of detractors of Pakistan who know that the envisaged corridor would drown all the sinister plans hatched by them to denuclearise and balkanise Pakistan.
It must not be forgotten that only a third of population of Baluchistan is Balochi speaking which include Brahvis as well. More numbers of Baloch live in southern Punjab and Sindh who are educated, patriotic and well integrated with rest of people of Pakistan. Great numbers of Baloch youth are joining armed forces and paramilitary forces and trend to get educated is on the rise – thanks to dedicated efforts of the Army. Dr Malick’s regime helped by the federal government is working hard to alleviate the grievances of the Baloch and to bring back the misled Baloch leaders.
Passage of 18th Amendment allowing greater autonomy to provinces, allocation of extraordinary heavy development budget and establishment of nationalist government in Baluchistan has left the insurgents with no ground to grieve and seek independence. Baloch insurgency is made up of handful of insurgent groups, mostly belonging to Bugti, Marri and Mengal tribes and except for Allah Nazar, all other rebel leaders are residing abroad enjoying the hospitality of their patrons. Insurgents represent only a few districts and they have no political party and are highly unpopular. They are disgruntled, exhausted, disenchanted and involved in infighting. Their patrons are vexed and vainly keep counseling them to unite for their lost cause.
Pakistan of today is alive to all these threats and challenges and the sitting government, headed by Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif, the entire political leadership and the army under the command of COAS Gen Raheel Sharif and other services’ chiefs are unanimous and in complete agreement with one another on the policy of ‘no surrender to such nefarious activities’. Establishment of Special Security Division to ensure security of foreign and local workers employed along the corridor is a wise step and will help in frustrating the baleful designs of anti-state elements.
The writer is a retired Brig/defence analyst/columnist/author of five books, Member Executive Council PESS, Director Measac Research Centre, Director Board of Governors TFP. [email protected]