Concerned officials, however, have expressed resentment over the decision, saying that NOC should not have entertained the revision pushed from the backdoor. They even smelt a rat on the case, wherein 21 staffs inflicted the depot 50 percent higher loss than the permitted limit over the span of a year in the name of ´technical loss´. [break]
Still more; the anti-graft body has turned blind eye on why NOC´s top management did not take steps to control the loss on time. “NOC´s managing director always gets report on loss from all depots every month, but neither the NOC board nor CIAA had held him accountable for the wrongdoing,” said a source.
Bhagawati Kafle, secretary at CIAA, said that they would now punish the wrongdoers to repay just about Rs 14.50 million to NOC. He admitted that the loss amount is half of what they were about to slap.
“We reviewed it because the corporation, citing its latest technical report, suggested us to do so. Since it said the revision is done by its technical team, we have to agree,” he told myrepublica.com.
Interestingly, the previous loss amount was ascertained by the high-level probe team led by joint secretary of Ministry of Commerce and Supplies (MoCS) and it had technical staffs from NOC as well.
The separate technical team that NOC formed some two months ago, on the other hand, included staffs that were infamous and punished for different anomalies in the past.
Citing the track record of the team members, sources had raised question over the credibility of its findings at the very outset. “We were wondering why the management formed the new committee when the high-level team had already dug out all facts on anomalies in Amlekhgunj. Now its purpose has become clear,” said the source.
Interestingly, NOC has recently formed yet another committee, including top management officials, to ´investigate losses´ at its depots.
“We won´t be surprised if the team gave clean cheat to the wrongdoing staffs or sharply lower the loss amount yet again,” the source said.
The members of the team that halved the loss volume, meanwhile, said that they reviewed the loss because NOC had received a substantial chunk of petroleum products from Barauni during the past one and half years.
Because Barauni is farther and has temperature higher that Raxaul -- the regular import point -- the team has argued that it had raised the loss and adjusted those accordingly in its new findings.
Knowledgeable officials, however, did not agree with the team´s argument. “The previous high-level team too had taken all those facts into account,” the added.
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