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NBC sell-off report battle
Page 7
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• Whitehall has been accused of a cover-up over alleged under-valuing of the National Bus Company which was auctioned off to 72 bidders in 1988.
A draft report on the NBC sales is being held up by a wrangle between the Department of Transport officials and the National Audit Office. The report contains details of alleged asset-stripping amounting to millions of pounds by some of the NBC purchasers.
MPs on the all-party Public Accounts Committee are demanding that the report be released to Parliament. They have already been forced to postpone a hearing on the NBC sale scheduled for 12 March.
Committee member MP Terry Davis says it is "unprecedented" for a Public Accounts Committee meeting to be postponed indefinitely. Davis believes the Dip is objecting to the disclosure of the profit individual companies have made through property disposal, and that the DTp is, very unusually, not even prepared for these figures to he given in confidence to the Committee.