The latest report of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) has found corruption, fraud and financial misappropriation in 15 State institutions causing losses amounting to billions of rupees to the State.
The report, the fourth by the incumbent COPE committee, was presented to Parliament by COPE Chairman, JVP MP Sunil Handunnetti.
Soon after submitting the report, Handunnetti called on the relevant Ministers and Ministry Secretaries to take necessary measures to resolve the issues highlighted by the COPE.
“There is no point in presenting these reports to the House if no action is taken in line with issues found by COPE. The ministers and secretaries concerned should take steps to remedy the problems we have identified,” he said.
The report consists of issues found in 15 public institutions which were examined from 1 September 2016 to 28 February 2017. Officials of these institutions were summoned before the committee for questioning during this period.
According to the report, the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport had been running at a net loss of Rs 2,105,298,382 in 2013, Rs 2,729,201,680 in 2014, Rs 3,099,230,580 in 2015 and Rs 1,546,931,328 in 2016.
Upon questioning officials of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation concerning the investigations conducted into the hedging deal, COPE found that the loss incurred by the transaction was at Rs 10.2 billion as of January 2016 and had increased to 14.6 billion by 31 December 2016.
The National Transport Commission had spent Rs 1,705,343 to print stickers for destination boards and emergency contact details on three occasions in 2015, but the funds had been spent without following a proper procurement process.
Rs 37 million had been spent to renovate a part of a building to be used to regulate provincial buses using GPS technology, but the space had not been utilized. In addition, a host of the 1,307 GPS devices installed on buses, at a cost of Rs 79 million, had malfunctioned due to the lack of proper maintenance.
Rs 8,009,310 and Rs 1,891,000 had been spent by the NTC for a festival and TV documentary respectively without proper approval. The seven electronic display boards, fixed by the NTC in 2013, at a cost of Rs 62 million on Bastian Mawatha- Colombo, Anuradhapura, Kurunegala, Nuwara Eliya, Kataragama, Ranna and Puttalam had stopped functioning. Furthermore, a vehicle had been purchased by the former Chairman of the NTC at a cost of Rs 9.2 million had exceeded the stipulated and approved amount of Rs 8 million.
The Tourism Development Authority’s Kalpitiya Integrated tourism project, which commenced in 2008 at an estimated cost of Rs 5,521 million, where holiday resorts with 4,000 rooms and infrastructure facilities were to be constructed within a period of five years, was yet to see single room being constructed despite an expenditure of Rs 88,797,590 as of 31 December 2014.
Tourism Development Authority had paid Rs 7,382,305 as a part of the interest on a loan of Rs 100 million issued to a private hotel by the Bank of Ceylon in 2014, the report notes. The COPE has found that a sum of Rs 11,089,228 out of Rs 29,195,802, that had been allocated to renovate 30 rooms of a holiday bungalow belonging to the Authority had been used without any work done. A sum of Rs 10,196,000 had been paid to a supplier of stones without approval. A sum of Rs 3,226,950 had been paid to suppliers by the Authority without adhering to the regulations.
Furthermore, the Co-Operative Wholesale Establishment had incurred a loss of Rs 39 million due to the purchase of 14,000 carom boards and 11 draughts boards. Additionally the CWE had received only Rs 257,667,217 of the Rs 870,963,097 allocated to the Lanka Sathosa. Sri Lanka Ayurvedic Drugs Corporation spent Rs 7 million as an initial step to introduce ten new products to the market during a ceremony by the name of Isiwara Osu launch in 2015. Out of the expenditure borne for this event, 71 per cent had been spent on publicity. It was found that of the ten products featured only one was genuinely new while the other nine were old products.
‘Ceylon Today’
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