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Computer ‘jilmart’ in Education Ministry’s Rs 527m ADB-funded project
View(s):Schools which received computers under a project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), complain that they find it hard to maintain them due to the failure of the private company which provided them to honour their contract.
The Ministry of Education signed a contract with a private company based in Nugegoda in 2010, to provide computers to a number of schools in the country. In terms of the Rs. 527 million contract presented under the Education Ministry’s Education for Knowledge Society Project (EKSP), 5,000 computers were given to 1,000 schools in the country, with 5 computers each including a laser printer, dot metric printer and VGA cards.
In a letter addressed to the manager of the private company on June 27, 2012, St. Sebastian’s Girls’ School, Principal Chandra Wickramasinghe says that out of the five computers given to them, four are not in working condition, disrupting school work in consequence.
In another letter written to the company, St. Mary’s Balika Maha Vidyalaya, Principal A.K. Gamage says that, even though complaints were made to the company from the day they were provided with the computers, their queries haven’t been addressed. The principal also claims that nobody from the company has come to the school to fix the computers, since they were given to the school. The letter is dated July 8, 2013.
Several other schools too have complained. The Lanka Teacher Services Union (LTSU) claims that there was a risk of the company closing, and by the end of last month, the staff of 150 was asked to resign. “Now there is only one worker in the company, and he is serving under a contract. The warrantee given for these computers was for five years, which includes two years of maintenance. Several principals complained to us saying that out of the five computers they got most were not in working condition,” said LTSU General Secretary, Mahinda Jayasinghe. He said that there are over 700 complaints made by school authorities regarding this matter.
He also said that, out of these computers, 700 had been returned to the company for repairs, but none of them were returned to the schools.
When we contacted the Western Province EKSP Manager P.T. Pitigala, to whom most of the principals’ letters were addressed, he declined to comment, saying that the Education Ministry is handling the project. The Ministry was not available for comment.
Former EKSP Director Anura Dissanayake was recently appointed Acting Secretary to the Ministry of Education. Several attempts made to contact him regarding the issue were not successful.
Indika Perera, the CEO of Business Solution Systems, said they have written to the lawyers regarding the matter and further details of the contract will be revealed to the media through them. He also denied any claims that the company has closed. He said that they have not gone out of service and that, any further questions should be asked from the Education Ministry, as they brought up the project.
An official of the ADB in Colombo said that the office monitors any project to which loans are granted by them, to see if the contract work is implemented and distributed. “The loan of this project is in the latter part. We are still monitoring it. We have come across minor issues, however they were attended to and necessary steps are taken to avoid similar issues,” the official said
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