National Assembly body terms TCP as most corrupt organisation

[Naveed Yaseen]

ISLAMABAD (May 15 2009): The National Assembly's Standing Committee on Commerce on Thursday termed the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) as most corrupt state-run organisation. Former TCP Chairman Saeed Khan, who, according to the committee members, was involved in corrupt practices did not appear in the meeting.

"The Commerce Ministry and TCP collude to hide wrongdoing and criminals roam free. We will expose graft at every level. Those responsible must be identified and punished in order to ensure that every rupee of public exchequer is spent with integrity and efficiency", said, Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan, MNA, while chairing the committee's meeting.

THE COMMITTEE ORDERED THE TCP CHAIRMAN TO IMMEDIATELY SUBMIT INVESTIGATIVE FINDINGS ON REPORTS ON THE FOLLOWING:

-- Large-scale theft and mixing of sand with sugar in TCP's Pipri godwons near Karachi.

-- Repeated burning of cotton bales worth Rs 490 million at Rahimyar Khan.

-- Purchase of rice at grossly inflated prices last season.

-- Serious allegations of bribery demanded by the TCP employees in recent purchase of cotton.

-- Payment of 8.5 million-dollar demurrage to shippers due to incompetent TCP scheduling.

-- Inflated transportation contracts of wheat awarded to ruling party favourites in 2008.

-- Irregularity in award of contract for renovation and rehabilitation of Pipri godwons.

Many committee members expressed serious concerns that the process of award of contract was shady and beset with cartels formed by contractors. The committee recommended strongly to the TCP to abolish pre-qualification of contractors and award contracts through open bidding.

Late decisions by the government and Economic Co-ordination Committee of the Cabinet also came under severe criticism. The members felt that delay in decisions to import commodities distorted the prices and benefited neither growers nor consumers.

The committee noted with dismay the absence of both the Commerce Minister and Commerce Secretary. "We wanted to inquire about the recently signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Afghanistan on transit trade and possible concession to India, but both the Minister and Secretary are absent," said the Chairman.

Liaquat Ali Khan, Yasmeen Rehman, Chaudhry Iftikhar Nazir, Tahira Aurangzeb, Haji Akram Ansari, Shireen Khan, Iqbal M. Ali Khan, and Jamila Gillani attended the meeting. Industries and Production Secretary Shahab Khwaja has been summoned by the committee for not timely loading the fertiliser from the stocks of the TCP.

Official sources told Business Recorder that TCP is bind to pay $8 million to the wheat suppliers because they paid demurrages to the cargo companies as the TCP did not offload wheat within the specified timeframe. "We have already calculated that TCP has to pay $8 million to the suppliers for delayed offloading of wheat otherwise the state-run corporation will be declared default at the international level," the sources added.

The sources confirmed said that at least three ships of imported wheat were substandard and the certificate obtained from independent laboratories is doubtful. The sources said, a sub committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of Yousaf Talpur who will inspect the stocks of TCP and submit its report to the Standing Committee within 15 days.

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