A report released by the Audit Department has revealed that Sri Lanka did not receive any income due to the assignment of Visa to the cabinet by the Ranil Wickramasinghe administration to Sri Lanka to a foreign company, according to a proposal.

According to a report published by Sunday Times newspaper, the company’s revenue issued from April 17 to August 02, 2024, the e-Visa issued after the approval of the company to issue e-Visa may not decrease to $1.8 million (USD 1,820,418) During that time, 98,401 tourists were issued a visa without charging visa fees, a foreign company has charged a fee for the issue of the visa. Sri Lankan treasury has not received any income when the foreign company (GBS Technology Services & IVS Global ± FZCO and VFS VF Worldwide Holdings Ltd) earned so much income citing the audit report.

Although Sri Lanka decided not to charge visa fees to many countries with the intention of uplifting the tourism industry in Sri Lanka, tourists from the relevant countries also lost the facility of getting free visa as the foreign company charged a fee for e-visa issue.

Even though the Supreme Court ordered the petition submitted by Champika Ranawaka, MA Sumanthiran and Rauf Hakeem against the trafficking issue of e-visa to a foreign company, Harsha Ilukpitiya, the immigration controller, avoided following the order. Been abroad for a while.

Harsha Ilukpitiya, who was convicted of insulting the court after the three complainant ministers informed the Supreme Court about it.

Although the National People’s Force Government, which came to power in September last year also strongly criticized the e-visa scandal, the government ministers were cautious not to mention the name of Tiran Alas, who is directly responsible for it. Although there were many allegations, including the appointment of Deshbandhu Thennakoon IG and human rights violations of the infamous ‘justice’ operation, Tiran Alas had even provided special police protection to the former minister.

Saroj Pathirana