The National Lotteries Board (NLB) has awarded a fresh printing tender to DPJ Holdings, which has been accused of causing a loss of nearly Rs.600 million earlier by not printing Govisetha Lottery for almost two months claiming that there is no paper required for printing.
DPJ Holdings failed to print ‘Govisetha’ from March 14 to May 12 of this year. Govisetha draw number 3001 was issued on March 14 and the next draw number 3002 was issued on May 12.
Accordingly, the NLB has lost approximately 57 rounds of Govisetha. Nearly 600,000 lotteries are printed per each round.
Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture which receives 14% of the profits from selling Govisetha has also suffered a huge loss due to the lottery not being printed 57 rounds.
It was reported that the loss incurred by the vendors who depended on the sale of Govisetha is close to Rs.100 million.
However, the NLB has awarded a lottery printing tender to the same firm in October despite causing a loss to the DLB itself and the Ministry of Agriculture.
The tender was awarded saying DPJ Holdings had bid 0.05 cents less than the second lowest bidder.
Meanwhile, it is said that former NLB Chairman Lalith Piyum and Sanjeewa Edirisinghe, who works as a NLB Manager, have exerted influence in awarding this tender to DPJ Holdings.
It has now been revealed that DPJ Holdings is related to the Port Chairman previously appointed by former Minister Rohitha Abeygunawardena.
In the future, we will reveal many undisclosed facts regarding a scam of moving the NLB office to a new building and removing lottery draws which were televised on Rupavahini.
