Despite passing above six years to the stealing of Rs 120 million by Attock Petroleum Limited (APL) in the shape of petroleum development levy (PDL), excise duty and sales tax, Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has so far failed to recover this heavy theft from the Oil Marketing Company (OMC).
Interestingly, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has kept mum on the matter as well. Even the interior minister, who has recently recovered around Rs160 million worth PDL from Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) through FIA, has not taken steps to recover Rs 120 million theft of PDL, excise duty, and sales tax by APL.
Official documents disclosed to Pakistan Today reveal that representatives of the ministry of petroleum and natural resources and OGRA unearthed a theft of Rs 120 million worth PDL, excise duty, and sales tax during physical inspections of Vehari depot of APL. They said these representatives also conducted inspections of all those outlets which were being fed with Vehari depot from 12th September 2011 to 16th September 2011 and obtained sales record of the outlets for the month of July and August 2011. During the physical inspection, 40,000 litres actual sale of MS (motor gasoline-petrol) for August 2011 was recorded against M/s Ahmed Raza Petroleum (APL outlet), whereas APL had shown a sale of 751,000 litres, sources said.
The sources said misuse of freight charges was detected during comparison of outlet wise sales data submitted by the OMCs to OGRA for freight purpose and the data obtained during the physical inspection. They said as per record/data provided by the OMC (APL), the total sale of MS for Aug 2011 was 7, 51,000 litres whereas the outlet intimated 40,000 litres actual sale during the physical inspection. Upon this, the company (OMC) was asked to give an explanation on this difference of 7, 11,000 litres and the APL provided fabricated sales ledger record of the outlet (M/s Ahmed Raza Petroleum), sources said, adding, however, the company remained unable to provide the bank receipts/vouchers to authenticate the above mentioned huge sale.
Sources further said that the actual monthly nozzle sale of the subject site (M/s Ahmed Raza Petroleum) was also rechecked by the OGRA officer on 15 June 2012, which established that the nozzle sale for the whole month was not more than 40,000-45,000 litres. The same was also informed by the representatives at the outlet, they added.
It is also learnt that the difference in sale and actual upliftment was once again noticed during the inspection dated 15 June 2012. The upliftment as provided by the OMC for the month of May 2012 was 6,38,000 litres, whereas it was noted down during inspection as 45,000 litres, the difference in the sale was of 5,93,000 litres.
Sources said the actual nozzle sale of MS as informed by the outlet representatives was 45,000 litres. Whereas as per the sales data provided by the company for the period of January 2011 to May 2012, it was noticed that during the entire period the sales trend of the subject outlet was totally uneven/abnormal and contrary to the actual sales. They said that except for the month of January 2011, when the sale of MS was only 56000 litres, the entire period from February 2011 to May 2012, the sales provided by the company ranged from 1,78,000 litres to 21,12,000 litres which were extremely higher than nozzle sale. Further, as per the sale record of the outlet provided by OMC clearly showed that the sale of 7,11,000 litres was not through nozzle, rather it falls under the heading of “Direct Sale” which was provided to five outlets named as M/s Bilal Filling Station, Khanewal Road, M/s Hussain petroleum Service Sultanpur,M/s National Filling Station, Multan Road, M/s M Ishaq Petroleum Service, Hasil Pur and M/s Adda Murad F/S, Harronabad. “OMC should have to deposit dealer margin, as additional Petroleum Levy is applicable in the case of a direct sale,” sources said.
It is worth mentioning that direct sale means a sale other than that through nozzle/retail outlet sale. Also, it has the same meaning/interpretation as suggested by the oil industry that is “Direct sale mean sales other than that through a nozzle of the retail outlet”. And the volume of petroleum products sold to any retail outlet as per invoice raised by the OMCs should be offloaded first into the underground tanks of the respective retail outlet, and then it should be sold to consumers only through nozzle of the retail outlet which cannot sell the product directly to any retail outlet in bulk.
