Transport Minister Kumar Welgama yesterday admitted in Parliament that a fraud to the tune of Rs 6,400 million had taken place at the Department of Motor Vehicle Registration.
The fraud had been highlighted in the Auditor General’s 2010 annual report, the minister said adding that the fraud had been committed by a cartel of vehicle importers, who had imported chassis of vehicles as spare parts. Those parts were then assembled and released to the market with the numbers of vehicles already registered at the Department. The government had incurred a loss of around Rs. 6,400 million due to this fraud, he said.
The fraudsters had made use of the special permission granted to import vehicle chassis in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster, the minister said adding that engines and gear boxes too had been imported under the category of spare parts. Around 2,000 vehicles had been released to the market in this manner and of them 1,900 had been assigned registered numbers of old vehicles.
Minister Welgama said that not only the officials of the Department of Motor Vehicle Registration but also some in the Import and Export Department and Customs Department were responsible for it.
The Minister said that he got Commissioner General of Motor Traffic to make inquiries from the Controller Import and Export with regard to the issue.
By using previously used motor vehicle registration numbers, they had not been registered with new numbers and English letters. A group of officials of the Department of Motor Vehicle Registration had been involved in the racket by helping the fraudsters to find old registration numbers.
Minister Welgama said that an investigation was in progress and the Criminal Investigations Department and Fraud Investigations Bureau were involved in the probe.
Minister Welgama was responding to a question raised by UNP Matara District MP Buddhika Pathirana.
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