All 54 CHOGM Mercs’ cars sold
View(s):All 54 Super Luxury Mercedes Benz S 400 class Hybrid cars imported for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2013 in Colombo have been sold, the head of Diesel and Motor Engineering PLC (DIMO) which acted as the indenting agent for the import of these cars, revealed.
DIMO has sold all these cars to private individuals, Ranjith Pandithage, Chairman & Managing Director of the company told the Business Times this week.
A senior official of the Finance Ministry, confirming this development, said the buyers have made payments to the Bank of Ceylon (BoC). The company has provided customs declaration and clearance documents under the name of the buyer indicating him as the person responsible for financial settlement.
The government had imported the vehicles at a price of around Rs. 13 million each under the normal system of importing vehicles for state institutions in accordance with the national budget circular No. 150, he revealed.
This is the normal procedure being followed to import vehicles for government agencies of which cost of vehicles are paid out of the Consolidated Fund, he said, adding that in some years the ministry has imported around 2000 vehicles under this procedure.
The payment to import these vehicles was made through the BoC’s City Office.
These luxury cars were imported from Daimler AG in Germany through the importing agent, Colombo-based Metropolis Logistics (Pvt) Ltd., by the Secretary to the Ministry of Finance.
They were handed over to Diesel and Motor Engineering PLC -which acted as the indenting agent for the import of these cars – to be sold at Rs. 30 million each on cost recovery basis, the official disclosed.
The Treasury has also directed the BoC to pay a total of Rs. 13.75 million (Rs. 250,000 per unit) as administrative costs to DIMO, for selling the cars, he added.