Questions over Tablets for Labour Dept.

400 Tablet computers purchased .... with EPF money of public

Employees of private institutions have great hopes on their Employees' Provident Fund (EPF). They constantly dream of the deductions made on their salaries being justifiably paid to them on the day they would be retiring, on behalf of the retirement salary they are drawing.

But one now comes to hear of the great Fund is by no means good news.
It was recently that Auditor-General Mr. H.A.S. Samaraweera revealed an audit report on this Fund that the loss incurred by in the year 2011 from investments made by 58 private establishments for the EPF stands at 11.7 billion.

It was said that this has been the reason for the benefits decreasing by 1% in the year 2001 of 2.5 million members of the Fund.

It was reported that from transactions carried out in 2010 to purchase 1,863,676 shares a sum of Rs. 500 million has been not charged so far and from monies invested on an electricity company in 2007 and on investments made on a finance company the loss so incurred has influenced the Employees' Provident Fund in a very large measure.

It was also understood that when circumstances are such, a sum of Rs. 40 million was expended on the purchase of 400 tablet-computers recently, saying that the monies were for e-government services activities. Trade unions now complain that this transaction of purchase has been operated on a method which is extraneous to government purchase procedures.

Officers of the Labour Department and of the Ministry of Labour are connected to this purchasing transaction and these items has been bought without any technical counselling or any advice provided by the International Labour Organization, it is reported. It is also learnt that the items concerned are at present stored while in another 3 months the stock will close upon its expiry date.