ISLAMABAD      -          Senate Standing Committee on Commerce on Thursday called for assurance from the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) (Pvt.) Limited, that no imports outside of the mandate of the TCP should be made. The committee also recommended introducing the bifurcation of procurement plan into regular and emergent so that the items could be procured by minimal rates. The chairman TCP apprised the committee that the TCP makes procurement for the food security and industries for urea and mainly deals with the import of wheat, sugar and urea to respond emergencies. The TCP presented proposals for permanent exemption on limitations on splitting tenders, 30 days response time, 15 days hoisting time before approval for inviting objections, matching bids, limitation on negotiations and 15 pc repeat per cap. The TCP also proposed to introduce lemmatizing the quantity of procurement and time indictors according to harvesting season. The Senate Standing Committee on Commerce met on Thursday under the chairmanship of Zeeshan khanzada here at the Parliament House and received a detailed briefing on the working of Trading Cooperation of Pakistan (TCP) with focus on its role in post flood scenario. The chairman TCP briefed the committee that the TCP is fully owned by the government of Pakistan, financially independent i.e. it does not receive any budgetary grant from federal government and the federal government determines when the TCP should import. The TCP informed the committee that the TCP invests 80pc with government securities (T-Bills, Treasury Bills, and PIBs) whereas 20pc funds are invested in term deposit and daily products. The chairman Committee inquired on the role of NFML to which the TCP replied that the National Fertilizer Marketing Limited (NFMl) is a distributive network and do not deal in procurements. The chairman TCP showed concern over the debtors in 2018 as per subsidy audit and apprised the committee that USC and NFML are the highest debtors by Rs51,183.000m and Rs24,005.66m respectively. The TCP said that the debtors do not return money which has reached up to a total of 91,756.802 including principal and markup amounts. “If it remains so, it will end up in the Public Accounts Committee,” said Senator Saleem Mandviwalla. The committee recommended that the funds should be extracted through the provincial budget and recommended to write letters to the Finance Ministry and redress the matter. While reviewing the overview of the company, the committee was apprised that for 30-06-2021 the paid up capital is Rs 1b and the comprehensive income was Rs. 1.517b. The revenue streams comprise commission income on commodity trading, investment, income, rental income from go-downs and rice inspection fee. The commodity procurement are financed through cash credit limits from commercial banks and until the moneys are collect from recipient of goods, the markup keeps on accruing on the bank borrowings. Discussion on Pakistan-Canada bilateral trade also entailed in the meeting. President Pakistan Western Canada Trade Association, President US Pakistan International Chamber of Commerce and the Commercial Counselor Toronto participated in the committee and gave proposals and recommendations to enhance exports to Canada and through Canada to other countries. The representatives from the Pakistan Western Canada Trade Association pledged the Ministry of commerce to extend support in this regard.