The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake

¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, we believe there are things the private sector both can and should do; therefore, we do not see a problem in private entrepreneurs supplying such services. But there are also activities which, without any real technical value-add or knowledge transfer—no software IP, no manpower training—have continued for decades at excessive prices, enabled by the direct patronage of political leaders. That has been straightforward, large-scale corruption.

¶ 02 To your specific question—can the State do some of these in-house?—let me give a concrete example and conclude. You know the same problem existed with driving licences. For close to 28 years, one group printed the licences. That led to waste, profiteering and dubious conduct. We stopped that and shifted to a new modality. The benefit is simple.

¶ 03 There is currently a delay in issuing driving licences, but for nearly 28 years nothing was done to build capacity inside the Department of Motor Traffic (DMT). Even in 2020–2022, attempts were made to use the military—those did not work either. We have now stopped that, procured new driving licence printing machines, and began installation from yesterday. We have 800,000 driving licence cards in stock, and we expect to start issuing from 18 October. While clearing the current backlog of 800,000, we will order another one million cards. Printing will be done by the Government (DMT). Earlier, with the Metropolitan company, we paid Rs. 534.54 per card. Doing it in-house at DMT will cost Rs. 368.16, saving Rs. 166 per card. We will internalize what we can, and for the rest, we will still give space to the private sector.