Technical equipment worth thirty million under Maithri are missing

An audit report reveals that many items worth several millions in the possession of the Presidential House and the media unit of the Presidential Secretariat have gone missing during 2018-2020.

As revealed by the audit according to the information received from the storekeeper of the President's House, 24 goods belonging to 12 items of the inventory had been shifted to the President's House at Mahagamasekara Mawatha, Colombo without making entries in the relevant registers.

According to a notification made by the President's Senior Assistant Secretary on November 18, 2019, it had come to light in a search made by the storekeeper of the President’s House that  61 goods belonging to 35 items in the Inventory could not be located in the new building, and no investigation has been conducted in this regard until March 2022.

According to this audit report, the media unit of the Presidential Secretariat has been maintained under four units until 2019. But the media unit was started in November 2019 under the name of the new media unit and no proper records have been maintained about the goods received.

It is also mentioned in the audit report that according to a report sent by the Engineers to the President's Secretary regarding the goods of the media unit, goods worth of 34,189,688/=  had gone missing.

According to the report, the quantity of missing items received during 2015 and January 2020 included 78 laptops and MacBook Air type computers worth Rs. 17,786,325, 48 out of 52 desktop computers worth 10,380,423 and 28 iPads and mobile phones out of 45 issued to the Officers of the media unite worth Rs 3,470,742.

The report states that out of the 45 mobile phones and iPads that were given to the Officers of the media unite 9 out of 14 and 2 out of 3 respectively were out of order. In addition, the report also states goods belonging to 12 items of Kataragama President’s House and 2 TVs at Anuradhapura President’s House were missing.

The audit report reveals that until 25th March 2022 , no audit or investigation had been carried out on these missing items. It is also stated in the report that no investigation has been conducted on any of these products by March 25, 2022 and no audit had been carried out.