COPA reveals an illicit vehicle registration scam

An illicit vehicle registration scam involving the import of super luxury vehicles by several local car importers working in collusion with some officials of the Motor Traffic Department (MTD) has been bared.

Details of a Montero jeep and a Hummer Jeep imported or assembled without paying custom duties came to light at an inquiry conducted by the Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts (COPA) recently.

These two super luxury jeeps had been registered with the MTD using registration numbers of vehicles no longer running evading custom duties, COPA report revealed.

The Chief Accounting Officer ( CAO) of the MTD was ordered to submit a detailed report to the committee regarding the procedures adopted in changing ownership of a vehicle from the original registration, condemning of vehicles/removal from running and procedures adopted in regard to the registration numbers, chassis and engine numbers of vehicle removed from running.

Internal auditors have found that the Customs had not levied import taxes on those two super luxury vehicles following strict scrutiny of documents and relevant files at the MTD. Seven Prado Jeeps have also been registered fraudulently.

The CAO has reported that the registration of two vehicles had been cancelled and the issue regarding the other five jeeps had been referred to the Sri Lanka Customs on the advice of the Attorney General.

He added that the Ministry of Public Administration had initiated an inquiry against the officer involved in the incident.

As there are illicit 'ways and means' to register vehicles, people tend to import vehicles and evade customs duty.

Since the MTD is a den of corruption and registers these illegal vehicles, the annual loss to the Customs Department is over Rs. 10 billion, Finance Ministry officials alleged.