Financial irregularities running into nearly a billion rupees at the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment have been revealed in the Auditor General’s annual report for 2006, which was presented to Parliament last week.

The report prepared by the Auditor General S. Swarnajothi shows that the SLBFE had failed to furnish documents in support of debtor balances aggregating to Rs. 591,719,245, payment vouchers amounting to Rs.184,397,421 incurred from the welfare fund of the emigrants and confirmation letters to support the debtor balances aggregating to Rs. 141,220,909.

The SLBFE had collected a sum of Rs.74,620,000 from those who had been selected for foreign employment and this was in excess of the amount paid by the Bureau to the relevant airline company for the bulk purchase of air tickets at wholesale price for travel to the Republic of Korea, the AG’s report stated.

Eight motor vehicles of the Bureau and two motor vehicles obtained by the Bureau on lease/hire had been released to the Ministry of Labour Relations and Foreign Employment. Further, a sum of Rs.6,227,176 had been paid by the Bureau during 2006 as expenditure on fuel, repairs and lease, rent/hire of those motor vehicles.

An advance of Rs.100,000 was paid in June 2006 for the purchase of a jeep for the Chairman SLBFE without following instruction in the government circulars. However, the jeep was not purchased and the advance was not recovered, the AG’s report revealed.

The Bureau’s Manager for Training had without following tender procedures decided to procure a building at Pannipitiya and had contacted the landlord, inspected the building and decided it was suitable for a training centre and informed the landlord that the SLBFE would rent out the building before obtaining the approval of higher authorities. He had also obtained and paid Rs.1,920,000 to the landlord when the actual rent was only Rs. 160,000 per annum.

A residential training centre that was to be built at Matugama at a cost of Rs.164,698,608 inclusive of VAT had been abandoned during the period of May 2004 and December 2006 after incurring an expenditure Rs.58,708,737. Thus, the expenditure incurred up to 31.12.2006 had become fruitless, the AG noted.