After having held two rounds of discussions with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Vinod Rai, on the contentious issue of audit of the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) KG-D6 gas block, Petroleum Secretary Vivek Rae, on Tuesday, indicated that the audit was likely to be resumed by this month-end.
The CAG had halted the audit of KG-D6 block in January this year after RIL refused to provide access to various statements and records arguing that CAG could not carry out a performance audit under the production sharing contract (PSC) norms.
It had raised issues of scope and nature of audit being done by CAG and had sought intervention of the Petroleum Ministry in the matter.
CAG had responded by stating that it was not planning to a do a performance audit of the company but only wants to examine propriety of expenses made. Mr. Rae said the issues over the scope and nature of the audit had been more or less resolved.
It is learnt that Petroleum Ministry officials along with those of RIL and CAG on Tuesday held a prolonged meeting to arrive at a consensus on the nature and scope of the audit.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of function here, Mr. Rae said the audit would happen. “We are pretty clear about that. We are making all efforts to see that CAG is able to perform its duty,” he added.
The CAG wants the discretion for records to be requisitioned to be vested with the government or its auditor (CAG).
“Whatever records are sought will have to be made available. Once the issue of scope of audit is resolved, there should be no issues about records being made available,” he said.
Further, Mr. Rae said that government had not yet taken a call on allowing GAIL (India) to buy Asian Development Bank’s 5.2 per cent stake in Petronet LNG. ADB, in 2011, offered to sell its 39 million shares or 5.2 per cent stake in Petronet.
GAIL, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum, which hold a 12.5 per cent stake each in Petronet, along with GdF of France, have the first right of refusal over the ADB stake.