State coffers suffered huge losses

A probe conducted by the Auditor General’s Department and the Parliamentary watchdog committee, COPA (Committee on Public Accounts) has revealed that a large number of luxury cars and SUVs have been imported with the help of forged documents that declared them as tractors.

During a recent COPA investigation into the Department of Motor Traffic (DMT), it was disclosed that the files related to the registration of those vehicles had gone missing.

COPA Chairman Aravinda Senaratne pointed out that BMWs and Mercedes-Benz cars had been declared as tractors. A total of 158 such cases had been specifically identified, the COPA said.

At the last COPA meeting, the DMT was instructed to provide details regarding those instances, but the Department has not yet done so. Some officials had already been identified and charged with the fraudulent registration of vehicles, Senaratne said.

“Wrong information about these vehicles has been entered deliberately. Their years of manufacture have been altered. According to our records, whenever an issue is raised, officials claim that the relevant files are missing,” Senaratne stated.

Current Commissioner General of the DMT, Nishantha Weerasinghe, said that those incidents had occurred before he assumed office.

Former DMT Commissioner General Sumith Alahakoon revealed that he had lodged two complaints with the CID. “When I took office, there were about 12 container loads of files flagged for errors. Out of those, 118 files were recovered by internal auditors and submitted to the CID. Thereafter, I was removed from my post,” he said.

The COPA Chairman accused the current DMT Commissioner General and his officials of failing to follow up on the complaints lodged with the CID by his predecessor.

When asked about action taken against the prime suspect in the fraud involving the luxury cars imported as tractors, the current Commissioner General said the suspect had been released due to insufficient evidence. A system analyst had been interdicted as investigators found that the database contained wrong information about vehicle imports.

COPA member MP Chandana Sooriyarachchi remarked that COPA investigations would be meaningless if officials sought to absolve themselves of responsibility simply by claiming that files had gone missing.

Sooriyarachchi said such fraudulent actions had cost the state coffers billions of rupees.The COPA Chairman said all aspects of the case would be thoroughly investigated.

by Saman Indrajith