Luxury car valued at nearly Rs. 9 million and Customs role …

COLOMBO: A loss of Rs 6,130 million during the time period of 2013-2016 incurred by the  due to two leading palm oil companies was brought to the attention of Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts (COPA).

An audit conducted by the Auditor General’s Department revealed that the loss of money was due to the negligence on the part of Sri Lanka Customs officials having failed to clear specific goods under the Harmonized System (HS Code) within the relevant frame.

Although the Secretary to the Treasury and Ministry of Finance Mr. Attygalle has already taken measures to investigate and recover the losses incurred by the government due to these three companies, the committees directed the Sri Lanka Customs to also take immediate action on this regard to which the Director General of Sri Lanka Customs Major General Vijitha Ravipriya agreed.

Director General of the Sri Lanka Customs and its high-ranking officials, officials of the Ministry of Finance and officials of the Auditor General’s Department marked their presence at the Committee on Public Accounts chaired by Prof. Tissa Vitharana.

Members of the Committee and Minister of State Dayasiri Jayasekara, Shehan Semasinghe, Prasanna Ranaweera and Members of Parliament Tissa Attanayake, Ashoka Abeysinghe, Gunapala Ratnasekera, Weerasumana Weerasinghe, Prof. Ranjith Bandara, Niroshan Perera, Gamini Waleboda, S. Shritharan, Prof. Harini Amarasuriya, Upul Galappaththi, were present at the meeting.

It was also highlighted that since 2013, the government has lost a revenue of Rs. 220 million because importers have registered imported vehicles as dual-purpose vehicles for special purposes.

Accordingly, it was revealed that a minimum of Rs.1,300 million amounting to 3 million each (443 × 3) could have been levied for 443 specialized vans during the periods from 2010-2019.

Another major irregularity was revealed through the audit pertaining the importation of 10 vans and 414 lorries under special purpose vehicles from the year 2010 was taken into discussion at the committee.

The committee also took to account a luxury car valued at nearly Rs. 9 million released by the Sri Lanka Customs under a levy of only Rs. 1.5 million having registered it under special purpose vehicles. Had the vehicle cleared under the relevant category of vehicles, the levy payable to the Government would be approximately Rs. 56 million.

Having pointed out the observations, it was proposed to expedite the maintaining of an automated computer comparison system as previously recommended by the committee given the concurrence of the Secretary to the Treasury and Ministry of Finance Attygalle having discussed with the Sri Lanka customs and the Department of Motor Traffic.

The members of the committee agreed to assist in the legislative process if amendments to any acts are required for these purposes.

Failure to implement an adequate internal control system within the Sri Lanka Customs pertaining to the process of imports and exports, having released six containers of perfume belonging to an importer worth Rs. 39,335,091 in six instances claiming it as western medication causing the government a loss of Rs. 40,761,600, failure to provide adequate punishment to the officials involved in the act of fraud were revealed at the committee.

Taking into consideration issues such as the officials of Sri Lanka Customs responsible in generating 32.48 percent of the revenue for the year 2019 opposing the implementation of a finger print machine to mark absence and attendance, weaknesses of internal governance, issues pertaining the recruitment of an Attorney and a Chief Internal Auditor for the Legal Department, members of the COPA committee mutually agreed upon summoning Sri Lanka Customs again before the committee with fixed solution within after the lapse of two months.