The Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) has called for a full report from the Finance Ministry Secretary over a tender offered by the National Lotteries Board to print the lottery tickets. The COPE has made this direction when the National Lotteries Board was summoned before the Committee last week. As of the COPE sources, some members of the Committee had argued that the tender floated in July had not been given to the lowest bidder and that there are questions as to whether the company selected has the capability to undertake the required work.
“Printing of lottery tickets had been done without tenders for many years in the past. It is good that the current management of the NLB decided to follow the tender procedure, but that procedure had not been fully transparent,” a COPE member said.
NLB Chairperson Shyamila Perera speaking to the Daily News pointed out lottery tickets had been printed without any tender from 1995-2011.
She said even from 2011 until the recent tender in 2016, the same company had been awarded the tender at 50 cents per ticket.
“There had been quality issues, errors and delays of the tickets printed by this company. The price per ticket as of the latest tender is 35 cents and it includes new technology and security features. From 2002-2016 the company which had been undertaking the printing of tickets was paid Rs. 2.2 billion, whereas this amount would have been only Rs. 800 million when calculated as of the new tender prices. We have been able to save Rs. 58 million per annum,” she said.
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