LAHORE: A four-member inquiry committee of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has found misappropriation of more than $ 70,000 during a Pakistan industrial exhibition held in Amritsar, India, last year.
It indicated that the Punjab Delhi-Haryana Chambers of Commerce and Industry (PDHCCI) had assumed responsibility of arranging the exhibition in Amritsar.
But its contract was awarded to an Islamabad-Rawalpindi party, paying it $ 70,000 for the job.
Moreover, the contract of luggage of the Pakistani exhibitors was given at rates eight times higher than their normal value to an Indian cargo company.
The committee was constituted by LCCI President Ejaz A Mumtaz, which submitted its report on January 1, 2015 but no action has so far been taken by the president.
The report concluded that non-provision of any receipt from the recipient, concealment of facts regards dealing with PWT & EC (the contracting firms), providing fabricated bills, incorrect information regarding the number of stalls, failing to give exhibitor- wise detail of the rent charged, any receipt for visa fees and copies of the agreement with cargo Agent/ Mr Malko/Mr Arif Lohar, and concealing the name of the cargo agent etc constitute misappropriation/ corruption.
“The LCCI paid $ 70,000 to PWT.
Please explain in detail why we had to pay this amount to PWT while the hall was given free of cost by Trillium Management (an Indian organization) and the other arrangement/ service by PHDCCI through Mr Hardeep Singh.
This is very important and we need full disclosure”.
This was the question asked by the committee which also contacted PDHCCI’s Hardeep Singh who said: “I, on behalf of PHDCCI, had executed the entire event that included promotions and advertisements, branding on site, site construction, designing of campaigns, logo of the event, newspaper ads, radio snippets etc.
for the Pakistan show that was held in association with Lahore Chamber (LCCI) early this year.
“No justification has been given as to why arrangements for the exhibition were made through an outsider party of Rawalpindi/Islamabad whereas the LCCI is fully geared in terms of manpower, logistics, influence in PHDCCI and financial strength.
The fact that PHDCCI had made all the arrangements through Mr Hardeep Singh, makes the agreement with the private contractors more doubtful and meaningless,” according to an observation of the committee.
It said that the agreement with PWT & EC was not checked by a lawyer.
This should have been done since it agreement created financial involvement of LCCI.
There was no evidence indicating any required competitive bidding for this agreement.
The report pointed out that the basis of calculation of freight etc of Rs 500/kg (later reduced to Rs.
400/kg) was not explained to the committee.
In April/May 2014 and even now the maximum freight rate from Lahore to Amritsar was not more than Rs.
50/kg and it was argued that this cost was to be borne out by the exhibitors, which was unjustified.
Ch Mohammad Amjad, president progressive & customs alliance and opposition leader in LCCI told that the committee could not find any evidence showing that the agreement was signed properly by the LCCI and the contracting companies.
There was also no evidence showing that the agreement had ever been discussed in any meeting of the Standing Committee of Delegation and the Executive Committee.
The committee said it was stated that all payments, big or small, were made through cheques.
But this was wrong.
Only two minor payments of Rs 18900 and Rs 20445 were made to the printer through cheques.
All other payments were made in cash.
Cash payments amounting to Rs 592,400 (given to cargo agents) Rs 300,000 and Rs 250,00o did not make any sense especially in the absence of the copies of the agreements with the parties and receipts from the recipients.
