 News
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CPC pumping out but not in: Audit report Overdues to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) from private fuel dealers have exceeded Rs. 350 million, an audit report has revealed. The CPC, despite suffering losses, has been providing some seven-fold more credit than the dealers’ bank guarantees, varying from rupees six to seven million, the auditors have cautioned. The warnings come amidst claims by trade unionist that the Corporation’s financial situation could further deteriorate if action is not taken to collect the dues from dealers forthwith. A case in point was where the CPC had suffered a loss of Rs. 3.9 million as a dealer’s payment default while he had a bank guarantee of only rupees one million, which too was due to end yesterday. An audit report said that financial mishandling had been pinpointed as far back as November 2003 and cautioned that the impact would affect the organization’s liquidity. They had also pointed out that sales could not be improved through credit schemes. Examination of transactions had revealed that 90 per cent of them were not settling their dues within the five-day credit limit and some unofficially enjoyed a 10 to 15 day period. The report pointed out that if the Rs. 300 million in overdues had been invested, Ceypetco would have earned Rs. 78,000 per day. The report has noted that officials seem to enjoy immunity against allegations of negligence, with no accountability when handling government funds. “They seem to easily pass the liability for recovery to the CPC’s legal division to fight out the case for another 10 years with no benefit accruing to Ceypetco”, the report noted.
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