Three petitions filed against minister, Govt over VFS visa deal

Opposition MPs Patali Champika Ranawaka, M.A. Sumanthiran, and Rauff Hakeem have filed three petitions at the Supreme Court against Minister of Public Security Tiran Alles and the government regarding the introduction of the VFS visa procedure at Katunayake Airport.

The petitions seek an order from the court to suspend the visa system, citing concerns over potential security data breaches.

"I have lodged a petition at the Supreme Court against Minister of Public Security @TiranAlles and the Government for their alleged involvement in a multi-billion dollar scam related to the IVS visa procedure," MP Champika Ranawaka stated in a post on 'X'.

MP Ranawaka further explained that the decision to file the petition was made considering their roles as members of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Finance (CoPF).

Meanwhile, MP Rauff Hakeem described the VFS visa deal as a scandal "10-fold worse than the Central Bank bond scam" during his remarks to the media.

The VFS Global's new visa issuance system and associated charges came under scrutiny after a local passenger raised concerns, with video footage of the incident circulating widely on social media.

A probe by the Committee on Public Finance revealed that VFS Global was selected without a competitive bidding process, causing the Department of Immigration and Emigration to potentially lose out on cost-effective visa issuance rates.

MP Harsha de Silva, Chairman of CoPF, presented a report in Parliament indicating that competitive bids could have secured services for less than US$25. He highlighted that local firm Mobitel had previously offered similar services for US$1, emphasizing the lack of specified criteria during the selection process.

The CoPF expressed concerns over the absence of specification documents, which could have facilitated competitive bidding from both local and international firms for Sri Lanka's visa issuance services.