Samagi Jana Sandhanaya Presidential candidate MP Sajith Premadasa vows to annul the “corrupt VFS visa agreement signed by the current government”.
According to MP Premadasa’s election manifesto launched yesterday, a new modern system will be established to allow foreign tourists to obtain visas easily at a lower cost.
Additionally, steps will also be taken to ensure accountability for this transaction, which is considered the largest corruption case in Sri Lanka.
The election manifesto further states that a Samagi Jana Sandhanaya government will implement a visa-free entry programme for citizens of 100 countries.
Under the programme, tourists will be allowed to visit Sri Lanka for up to one month without the need for a pre-arrival visa.
The proposal addresses the problems faced due to the current visa issuance process at the Katunayake Airport.
The new visa issuance system by global visa processing service, VFS Global and its charges came under the spotlight after a local passenger had raised concerns over the process, with the video of the incident being widely circulated on social media.
A probe launched by the Committee on Public Finance also found that VFS Global had been picked without calling for official bids and had resulted in the Department of Immigration and Emigration losing out on receiving competitive rates for visa issuance.
In July this year, three petitions were filed at the Supreme Court against Minister of Public Security Tiran Alles and the government against the VFS visa procedure. Opposition MPs Patali Champika Ranawaka, M.A. Sumanthiran, and Rauff Hakeem filed the three petitions.
Recently addressing the media, the three MPs who are members of the Committee on Public Finance (CoPF) had also raised concerns over the involvement of a bank account in Dubai concerning the income received via the visa application process operated by VFS Global at the Katunayake Airport.
Briefing the media on the petition filed at the Supreme Court, together with CoPF members Rauff Hakeem and M.A. Sumanthiran against the VFS visa deal, MP Patali Champika Ranawaka alleged that the income of VFS Global was being transferred to an account in Dubai.
MP Ranawaka further said that it had been found that the money was being deposited from the Dubai account to the Sri Lanka Immigration Department’s account only after one week.
The lack of a proper visa issuance system has severely inconvenienced tourists visiting Sri Lanka, with long queues regularly reported at the visa counters at the Katunayake Airport. (Newswire)