Foreign Minister strongly influenced procurement process of NLB in 2017: COPE

The Foreign Minister has strongly influenced the procurement process of the National Lotteries Board (NLB) which was under the purview of Foreign Ministry in 2017, the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) revealed.

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 NLB and, it is still not possible to call for a new tender for the printing of relevant lottery tickets until 2020.

The Committee pointed out that the NLB had spent a whopping Rs. 609 million in 2016, Rs. 453 million in 2017, Rs. 506 million in 2018 and Rs. 530 million in 2019 for the printing of lottery tickets. 

Therefore, the Committee recommended that the procurement process of the institution should be carried out in a more systematic and planned manner and that the process of printing lottery tickets should be properly regulated.

It was revealed that the company has not yet received the amount of US $ 26,000 due from the ‘’Colombo Airport Super draw’’ and the lottery draw process of ‘’Doller Fortune’’ was not transparent. Therefore, the committee also recommended that the process be streamlined.

Meanwhile, Former Foreign Minister Ravi Karunanayake when contacted by Daily Mirror said this is an act of Character assassination. 

“In fact, the National Lotteries Board earned the highest revenue during 2017, 2018. “ Many tried to find fault with me and make allegations that I spoilt Sathosa and they could not prove anything. They are trying to assassinate my character once again,” he said. (Yohan Perera)