- Request denied citing need to manually check, un-received payments
The Department of Government Printing has rejected a request of the Election Commission (EC) to provide it with the postal ballot papers for 17 districts for the Local Government (LG) elections that have been printed as of now.
Speaking to The Daily Morning, Government Printer Gangani Liyanage said: “The EC has been requesting that I release the postal ballot papers for 17 districts that have already been printed, but I cannot release them just because the printing work is done. They should be checked and the relevant payments should be made by the Finance Ministry and the Treasury to us. What if the department does not receive the payments once I release the ballot papers to the EC?”
She further added that it is also questionable whether the release of ballot papers for only 17 districts would be of use to the EC as it is not possible to hold postal voting in only 17 districts. “What is the use of having ballot papers for 17 districts? Can the EC hold the LG elections in only those districts and not in the rest? Once all the ballot papers are printed and checked, and the relevant payments are received, we can release them to the EC,” added Liyanage.
When queried regarding how the checking process of ballot papers would be done and what the cost of the already printed ballot papers is, she said: “These ballot papers have been printed. The work involving machinery is now over, but they have to be checked manually. There cannot even be a tiny mark on the ballot papers, so they should be checked one by one. We have spent about Rs. 55 million on the work related to these ballot papers, but we have received only Rs. 40 million from the Treasury.”
Despite requests made by Liyanage from Secretary to the Finance, Economic Stabilisation, and National Policies Ministry and the Treasury Mahinda Siriwardana to release the required funds for the printing of ballot papers for the LG Elections, the latter is yet to take steps in that regard. He has instead taken steps to forward the recent related requests made by the Government Printer to Subject Minister President Ranil Wickremesinghe.