News
Opposition renews demand for release of e-visa forensic audit
View(s):By Ishu Bandara
Opposition politicians are renewing their demand for the release of the forensic report on the e-visa contracts.
This follows Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling that sentenced former Controller General of Immigration and Emigration Harsha Ilukpitiya to two years in prison for contempt of court after he failed to arry out the court’s order to restore the old system until the court ruled on the petitions filed against the new system.
The opposition politicians claimed that the government had still not submitted the forensic report to the court even though 15 months had lapsed since the petitions were filed in the Supreme Court.
Opposition politicians Patali Champika Ranawaka, M.A. Sumanthiran, and Rauff Hakeem filed petitions in the Supreme Court, challenging the then government’s e-visa scheme. Mr Ranawaka said the petitions were based on findings of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Finance (COPF). All three were members of the COPF.
Mr Ranawaka said the case, which concluded on September 23, 2025, was specifically on contempt of court, but the main case was still being heard. He said their petitions cited the losses caused to the country and the fundamental rights violations linked to the e-visa deal. The case will be taken up again on November 23.
A key point of contention is the stalled forensic audit, which was the primary recommendation of a 660-page report by the COPF. Parliament approved the recommendation for the Auditor General to conduct a comprehensive forensic audit of the entire procurement process in July last year.
The petitioners have presented their own calculations of the financial damage to the court. They cited two financial losses. First, Rs. 3.71 billion was lost between the introduction of the new system on April 17 last year and the date of the interim court order. This was due to replacing a visa system that processed applications for one dollar with one costing over 25 dollars.
Second, an additional Rs. 4 billion was lost because the court’s interim order was not implemented and the old system was not reinstated. Data on the service fees earned by the contracted companies GBS, IVS, and VFS between April 17 and August 2, 2024, shows they collected over $12.6 million, or about Rs 3.78 billion.
But Mr Ranawaka emphasised that a forensic audit by the Auditor General was required to provide a definitive figure for the losses. Without it, their calculation cannot be considered official.
“If the audit report officially confirms that fraud occurred and quantifies the loss to the state, any citizen can use it to file a complaint with the police or the bribery commission,” he said.
Mr Ranawaka alleged that the audit report was being intentionally blocked to prevent the data needed for criminal charges from becoming public.
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