In a recent notification, The Petroleum Division had asked 25 oil marketing companies and refineries to certain the availability of relevant documents and the entire record of treasury challan, quantity registers, goods declaration forms, and other relevant records for inspection by the audit teams, said a government high official.
The government has initiated an inspection of all the oil refineries and oil marketing companies (OMCs) to bar the possibility of tax evasion, product sourcing, and transportation costs.
The operation had been started after a detailed inspection into the oil shortage crisis by a commission of a senior officer of FIA and his team, according to informed sources.
The Commission had suggested a comprehensive inquiry into aspects like petroleum levy, inland fright equalization margin, and product orders, etc. They had also warned against smuggling and estimated a revenue loss of almost Rs250 billion annually on account of smuggling in petroleum.
Sources in the OMCs called the notification an unusual thing and added that the refineries and OMCs had their own internal and independent auditors as legally required under corporate rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan and that they had sent the audited reports to the SECP on a quarterly basis. In case of any confusion, they added, could be clarified through the SECP’s own mechanism and cross-checked with the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) before issuing orders for special audit.
Earlier, The Petroleum Division had on Monday asked five major refineries — Parco, NRL, PRL, Byco, and ARL — besides ENAR Petroleum Refining Facility, to provide “yearly breakup of deemed duty collected by each refinery and its utilization since its inception” within two days.
