Writing a letter to NOC on Friday, the committee has sought all documents related to Expression of Interest (EoI) announced by NOC last month, proposals submitted by all bidders, detailed information of all the bidders, including their history and present status, and comparative details of supply plan, rates and quality proposed by all the bidders.
PAC has asked NOC to clarify on what basis the supply contract was given to Birat Petroleum. It has also written to NOC to submit all documents related to agreements signed with Birat Petroleum.
Likewise, the committee has also asked NOC to furnish its working procedure to sell petroleum products sources supplies by the new firm
Breaching existing laws, NOC had issued Rs 200 million to Birat Petroleum to open Letter of Credit (LC) for importing petroleum products into Nepal. The decision was taken under direct order of NOC Managing Director Gopal Bahadur Khadka. As per the contract, NOC will pay Birat Petroleum Rs 199 for a liter of petrol and Rs 187 for diesel. The firm is bringing petrol and diesel from Siliguri, India where petrol costs IRs 66.11 (Rs 105.77) and diesel is available at Rs 49.55 (Rs 79.28). NOC is also paying customs duty of the petroleum products to be supplied by Birat Petroleum."
"Government agencies cannot breach laws in the name of easing supply," Surendra Aryal, under-secretary of PAC, told Republic". "We asked NOC to submit all documents related to the contract process to P"C."
Aryal said the committee will take needful decision after studying the documents.
Meanwhile, NOC Managing Director Khadka has already admitted that he flouted laws while awarding contract to Birat Petroleum. Khadka has been saying that it is impossible to import petroleum products as per the existing legal provision". "This process had to be adopted as it is impossible to import petroleum products through existing legal provisio"s," he told the meeting of Industry, Commerce and Consumer Welfare of the legislature-parliament on Thursday.
Birat Petroleum is a Biratnagar-based firm. The firm has five shareholders -- Nirak Chhetri, Kailash Chhetri, Binod Pandey, Prakash Dahal and Parshu Ram Upreti. The company has authorized capital is Rs 10 billion, issued capital of Rs 10 billion and paid-up capital of Rs 42.5 million.
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