Courtesy Adaderana

It was revealed at the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) that the then Foreign Minister has influenced the procurement process of the National Lotteries Board which was under the purview of Foreign Ministry in 2017.

Accordingly, a tender which had completed the procurement process for the printing of scratch lotteries in 2017 has been suspended by a Cabinet decision at the request of the then Foreign Minister.

Even though the then Minister of Finance Mangala Samaraweera had given an observation stating that suspending the tender was not the right decision, the Cabinet had decided to withdraw the above tender.

Accordingly, the tender for the printing of scratch lottery tickets which was due to be awarded to Aqua Flex Lanka (Pvt) Ltd has been stopped. The COPE has also observed that this cabinet decision has been made under the influence of Print Care Secure (Pvt) Ltd. The Cabinet decision has caused a huge financial loss to the National Lotteries Board and, it is still not possible to call for a new tender for the printing of relevant lottery tickets until 2020.

This was revealed at the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) which met in Parliament on 04th December under the chairmanship of Parliamentarian Prof. Charitha Herath to look into matters relating to the Procurement on the Print and Delivery of Lottery Tickets of National Lotteries Board.

In addition, it was revealed that the annual reports of the National Lotteries Board for the years 2017, 2018, 2019 have not been submitted to Parliament. Accordingly, the COPE has instructed to look into the matter and submit the relevant reports to Parliament as soon as possible, the statement said.