.jpg)
KABUL (SW) – A source at the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum claimed the government has appointed a committee to assess procurement of the Ghazanfar Group’s oil refineries and installations to compensate for election related expenses.
According to the source, the government will procure the Group’s refineries set up on public lands. The government would assess procurement of oil refineries at the Hairatan, Aqina and Sher Khan ports after a committee consisting of representatives from the Ministries of Commerce and Industry, Mines and Petroleum, Economy, Finance, National Environmental Agency, National Petroleum and Petroleum Production Authority look into the matter in details.
According to information obtained by Salam Watander, the committee has so far been able to inspect the Group’s refinery at the port of Hairatan, but has failed to evaluate the port of Aqina and Sher Khan due to security threats. According to the source, efforts are under way to evaluate the refineries at the remaining two ports and at the end of the evaluations, submit its report to the presidency.
Another source at the Ministry of Economy confirmed this information, but share no more details.
Presidential candidate Rehmatullah Nabil, who provided salutary information about the matter, told SW that Mohammad Ashraf Ghani’s campaign team has spent about $ 175 million for the polls, part of which came from the Code-91 of the budget while the rest came from the Ghazanfar Group.
According to Nabil, as a result of the huge campaign money raised, the bank owned by the Group has gone out of cash that is why the government is seeking to recoup the lost money by buying the oil refineries. Nabil believed the Group’s oil refineries are "outdated and out of order."
The presidential contender claimed that in addition to this program, the Ghazanfar Group has obtained 17 types of tax exemptions, but SW could not confirm or reject this claim from government sources.
The Presidency and the Ghazanfar Group did not respond to our queries in this regard, but sources in Faryab province confirmed that the Ghazanfar Group facilities have been set-up on public lands at the Aqina Port. Bahadur, head of the Ghazanfar Group refinery in Balkh province, said the refinery here was built in 2012 and its equipment are not outdated. According to Bahadur, the Ghazanfar Group’s refineries refines petroleum products with best quality that eventually do not freeze even at minus 20 degrees in winter.
ENDS
