The special committee appointed to initiate these mass scale projects has committed this misdeed, the newspaper adds.

The newspaper also reports as follows :

The Tender was called when the previous regime was in power and China's Hunan Engineering had bid US$ 78.9 million while France's Ellipse Projects had bid US$ 67.2 million.

However, the Tender was given to the Chinese company on the directives of the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa and it received Cabinet approval on 19th June, 2014.

The cabinet paper passed also stated that the Tender was awarded at a price of US$ 69 million.

Empty envelope!

However, the previous government was unable to put this project into action. Therefore, the special committee of the present government had yet again called the two companies to bid for the project.

The two companies were sent the notification via registered post. However, the envelope addressed to Ellipse Projects had contained nothing.

Upon inquiring about the empty envelope, it was learnt that the letter informing of the tender call had reached the company as an empty envelope.

Although the committee was notified of this it had been in vain and the tender was once again awarded to the Chinese company for a bid of US$ 92.9 million despite the French company bidding for only US$ 67 million.

This raises grave doubts and it seems clear that the a massive US$ 25 million has exchanged hands as commissions.

(Sath Handa)