Reports indicate that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) wrote to the union petroleum minister M Veerappa Moily that Reliance Industries (RIL) was not cooperating with the audit of the spending on the flagging KG-D6 fields.
It is learnt that the company declined to share the documents related to its legal case against the oil ministry decision to decline $1 billion of cost recovery as punishment for gas output from the main gas fields in KG-D6 block not matching the target.
The company has reportedly provided half of the documents to the team of the CAG during their three-week stay at the company’s office at Mumbai beginning January 9 and wrote to it that the rest, barring a small 10 per cent, would be given when the auditor promised to return on February 11.
The company does not want to share the documents on legal case because it feels they are no way related to audit of spending and would reveal its strategy to counter the ministry will compromise its legal case.
The CAG also did not receive the documents relating to selection of technology as it felt the auditor cannot sit on judgement using hindsight to question decisions taken 6-7 years ago.
According to RIL, the auditor’s job is to verify expenditure and not question technology selection, which can be done only in a propriety audit and such an audit was beyond the scope provided in the production sharing contract (PSC) for KG-D6.
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