Fraudulent Vehicle imports:

Govt loses Rs 7,000 m

Wijayani Edirisinghe

The Auditor General’s Department yesterday said the Government has lost a total revenue of Rs 7000 million for registering vehicles which were imported to the country in a fraudulent manner without paying due custom levies.

The Department has bared this scam which has been carring out for a number of years after a comprehensive investigation into the modern cars carrying old numbers .

It was found that more than 5000 vehicles which were registered with the Motor Traffic Department in fraudulent manner are on the streets.

It has been revealed that vehicle importers are on the habit of importing parts of modern vehicles to the country and later assembling them in the country.

This practice has been going on for years without the notice of the authorities.

The people who are allowed to import vehicle parts to the country have to pay less custom charges than those who import vehicles.