Five OGDCL directors removed

ISLAMABAD: The government has removed, with immediate effect, five members of the board of directors of OGDCL, the country’s largest oil and gas producer.

The action was taken amid a conflict of interest pointed out by intelligence agencies in the restructuring of the Pakistan State Oil board.

A notification issued by the petroleum ministry did not give any reason for the removal of directors of OGDCL. Those who have been removed include Tariq Iqbal Khan (chairman of NIT), Waqar Malik (chief executive of ICI Pakistan), Rafiq Dawood (head of Dawood Islamic Bank), Sikandar Muhammad Khan (head of the Sugar Mills Association) and Sikandar Hayat Jamali.

The newly-appointed directors are: Senator Mohammad Ismail Buledi from Balochistan, chief secretary of Balochistan Nasir Mehmood Khosa by designation, Kaiser Bengali (renowned economist) and comparatively unknown Fahad Sheikh and Syed Masieh-ul-Islam.

A premier intelligence agency had complained to the prime minister that most of the recently-appointed directors of the PSO board were close friends of people in the PSO management and had conflict of interest with the company.

Sources in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat told Dawn that the agency had also raised questions about over Rs6.5 billion inventory losses faced by PSO.

They said that PM’s principal secretary Nargis Sethi had forwarded the intelligence agency’s report to Petroleum Minister Syed Naveed Qamar for comments. Six members of the PSO board, the sources added, had been appointed on the recommendation of the management and one by the PM’s Secretariat.

The post of PSO chairman has been lying vacant since the removal of Sardar Yasin Malik a few weeks ago. He was removed at the request of the PSO management on the grounds that he was interfering in the administrative affairs of the company.

The newly-appointed directors of the PSO board are: Asad Saeed, Pervaiz Khan, Tariq Khamisani, Usman Saifullah Khan, Hamayoun Jogezai, Sabir Hussain (director general oil by designation) and Malik Naseem Hussain.

Managing Director Irfan K. Qureshi and Financial Adviser Mehmood Akhtar will continue to remain members of the PSO board of management.

Petroleum ministry sources said that Tariq Khamisani was from the British Petroleum which had been engaged in due diligence of PSO for possible takeover of majority stakes and management control through privatisation.

Usman Saifullah Khan is son of former petroleum minister Anwar Saifullah Khan who also runs a couple of energy sector companies.

Pervaiz Khan hails from Uch Power Company while Asad Saeed has experience in multinational energy firms.

Documents suggest that a summary of the petroleum ministry seeking restructuring of the PSO board did not recommend the name of Malik Naseem Hussain who was inducted directly on the instructions of Nargis Sethi.

Interestingly, Istaqlal Mehdi, a member of the board, has been removed because his company has shown interest in the privatisation of PSO.

Another director Arshad Saeed has been shown the door on the grounds that he was a former employee of PSO’s competitor Shell Pakistan, although a close examination suggests that a number of PSO’s managing directors had come from another competitor Caltex with much less market share.