Postmaster General exposes overtime fraud and inefficiency in postal service

5 October 2025 05:23 pm Views - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}} 9 Bookmark

CHATURANGA PRADEEP SAMARAWICKRAMA Follow

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Colombo, Oct. 5 (Daily Mirror) - Overtime payments amounting to more than Rs. 10 million had been claimed by a majority of postal employees without using fingerprint verification, following over 400 audit queries conducted last year and this year, Postmaster General Ruwan Sathkumara revealed.

Speaking at an event held at the Haputale Post Office to mark World Post Day, Sathkumara said that all postal service vehicles had been undergoing maintenance on Sundays — a process carried out entirely on overtime pay.

"One person receives four hours of overtime, while at least ten employees are engaged in servicing vehicles on Sundays, collectively claiming around 40 hours of overtime. The amount increases with the number of vehicles serviced per day. When the overtime was stopped, those employees said they could no longer perform the work on Sundays. I told them the vehicles could be serviced at private stations instead," the Postmaster General said.

He further alleged that some employees had inflated work hours and listed unnecessary staff when claiming overtime payments for vehicle servicing.

Sathkumara also criticized delays in postal delivery, highlighting a recent case where a letter sent from Pilimathalawa to the Ministry of Higher Education in Colombo took nearly a month to reach its destination.

Comments - 9

B P Sunday, 05 October 2025 05:50 PM

"Overtime Racket" is everywhere both in Publick

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Sokrates Sunday, 05 October 2025 05:58 PM

This is not only the case at the Post Office. At the CEB, too, work that is not urgent is often started on Friday and then drags on until Sunday. What's more, this work is carried out by far more people than are necessary.

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Jagath Perusinghe Sunday, 05 October 2025 06:08 PM

Unless under strict terms and conditions and a reasonable price, private sector servicing is a big fraud. Quality of materials could be low and there could get collusion between Postal department and private service station. Best is to use in-house staff with strict internal controls.

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Ranga Sunday, 05 October 2025 07:11 PM

This is why majority of the counties privatise everything except health and education

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Bandu Sunday, 05 October 2025 08:13 PM

Same mafia continues in Sri Lanka Ports Authority too, internal auditor chief is sleeping and silent for job safety and death threats from drivers and their bosses who are using the drivers daily for their home works such as dropping their children to school, tuition, play ground, buying vegetables etc. Some are doing more than 1000 hrs overtime per month.

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maha Sunday, 05 October 2025 08:23 PM

this is another white elephant maintain by the taxpayers fund, its a crime .. today postal is a redundant service should scale down or handover to a private party to run efficiently. The People has no trust on the postal service, scare to handover any parcels, but private courier services are really worth ..

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Gunaya Monday, 06 October 2025 05:40 AM

Sounds like only vehicle repair men did the bad deed. Or is this deception?

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Corruption amoung long term government workers Monday, 06 October 2025 07:20 AM

There is high level of corruption among government workers, where they look at every avenue to rip off the public purse. The kind of scam is happening in someway in just about every other agency paid through by the public purse. It will take 20 years to make all the corrupt workers redundant, so long way to clean up the country of corruption.

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wac Monday, 06 October 2025 07:55 AM

Undue overtime claim is happening in many government institutions. They think it as their right. Over years these practices have rooted firmly. Unless all do their role properly to supervise, only the top cannot change this any organisation.

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