#DataScam : Software Engineer had supported to manipulate tender process - DSG

COLOMBO (News 1st); The Attorney General's Department told a Sri Lankan court on Wednesday (6) that medicine racketeers are making use of COVID-19 for their own benefit, at a time the entire country is facing the impact of the Pandemic.

Deputy Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris made this remark to the Colombo Chief Magistrate's Court when the #DataScam case was taken up.

Colombo Chief Magistrate Buddhika Sri Ragala rejected the request for bail noting that the suspect, a Software Engineer identified as Pramodh Dilupa Ramanayake, is charged with deliberately deleting over 1.1 million files from the database of the National Medicines Regulatory Authority.

Accordingly, court ordered for the suspect to be remanded until the 18th of October 2021 after considering the submissions made by the DSG.

The Deputy Solicitor General informed the court that the suspect Software Engineer had deleted the files for approximately seven hours.

He said the investigations had revealed that he was guided by a group of people including those from the National Medicines Regulatory Authority, and the Medical Mafia.

It was also revealed in court on Wednesday (6) that the suspect was previously serving with the Sri Lanka Navy.

Deputy Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris also told the court that investigations revealed that the suspect had operated as a service provider at Epic Lanka Technologies and when suppliers had forwarded tenders for medicine imports, he had on several previous occasions concealed certain information on the composition of the medicines mentioned in some of the tenders.

Dileepa Peiris pointed out that by concealing the information in such a manner, he was involved in a process where fresh medicine suppliers are rejected from the tender process, thus manipulating the system.

He also told the court that when those tenders are rejected, the tenders are given to the medicine mafia who thereafter artificially create a shortage of medicines in the local market for price manipulation.

Deputy Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris noted that this process deprived the people of Sri Lanka of access to quality medicines at reasonable prices and it had paved the way for the medicine mafia to hike prices of substandard medicines.