#DataScam; Evidence against Medical Mafia deleted, says State Minister

COLOMBO (News 1st); State Minister (Professor) Channa Jayasumana says the NMRA data that mysteriously disappeared from the Lanka Government Cloud, related to medicines and medical devices of companies that are being investigated for malpractices.

He said files that were to be used as evidence material had thus been deleted.

"Why did they wait for so long to delete these files? In the past, there were instances of evidence being destroyed when a court ruling was to be delivered. This is something like that. When investigations are taking place against the perpetrators and those in the medical mafia, they decide to destroy the evidence," alleged the State Minister.

Activist Ravi Kumudesh, who is also the President of the Sri Lanka Association of Government Medical Laboratory Technologists said the investigations must be placed directly under a Cabinet Minister, rather than a State Minister.

In the absence of an independent investigation, we cannot expect for the perpetrators to be exposed, he said, while alleging that the group responsible for the deletion of these files is the very group involved in probing the matter as well.

In July, data belonging to the National Medicines Regulatory Authority mysteriously disappeared from the Lanka Government Cloud which is operated by the Information and Communication Technology Agency.

Investigations have been taking place for almost two months, and yet, the real perpetrators responsible for the #DataScam are yet to be identified.