A consignment of 19,892 Tamil-language activity books and textbooks for Grade 1 pupils, worth about Rs. 800,000, never reached its intended schools in the Eastern Province, and Thalangama Police have opened an investigation.

The complaint was lodged by the Department of Educational Publications, based at the Ministry of Education in Isurupaya, and was received by Thalangama Police on August 12, Ada Derana reported. Hiru News named the complainant as N. W. D. Hiroshi Gunawardena, the department’s Commissioner (Production and Distribution), and said the complaint concerns criminal breach of trust.

Books cleared for transport in May

Permission was granted on May 4 to move the stock from Isurupaya to a company contracted by the department for distribution, according to the complaint. Hiru News reported that the books were loaded into a lorry bearing registration number 43-9874.

The consignment was scheduled for delivery to 12 distribution centres in the Eastern Province but was never handed over, the complaint states. The books were intended for the third term of Grade 1.

NewsFirst reported that the transport company failed to deliver the books to their intended destinations, and that one suspect has been arrested in connection with the case. The accounts published by Ada Derana and Hiru News did not refer to an arrest.

Update: books sold to a waste paper collector

A later Ada Derana report set out how the consignment disappeared. Thalangama Police found that the driver of the lorry carrying the textbooks had sold the entire stock, by weight, to a person who collects used bottles and waste paper for recycling. He received Rs. 47,000 for books valued at about Rs. 800,000.

The driver worked for the Biyagama-area institution contracted by the Educational Publications Department to transport and deliver the consignment, and had taken possession of the stock in May. The complaint followed only after the department received information that the books had never been delivered.

Police arrested the lorry driver, and subsequently arrested the waste paper collector who bought the stock, bringing the number of suspects to two.

Thalangama Police are continuing investigations.

Update, August 15: five suspects remanded

Five suspects, including the lorry driver, have now been arrested over the case, NewsFirst reported on Saturday — up from the two reported a day earlier.

All five were produced before Kaduwela Magistrate Aruna Buddhadasa on August 15 and remanded until August 25, Ada Derana’s Sinhala service reported.

Questioning after the driver’s arrest traced the route the consignment took, according to NewsFirst. The driver sold the stock to a person in Alawwa; it was then resold to a waste paper collection centre in Narammala, before being transported to Wattala.

NewsFirst reported that the Department of Educational Publications handed the textbooks over on May 24 for distribution to schools in the Eastern Province. Ada Derana’s earlier account said permission to move the stock from Isurupaya was granted on May 4; the two dates refer to different steps, and neither outlet set out the interval between them.

Secretary to the Ministry of Education Nalaka Kaluwewa said the document confirming that the textbooks had been handed over to the Eastern Province distribution centres was completed and submitted to the ministry by the suspect himself. He said payments due to the contracting company for transporting the books would not be released, and that a ministry investigation is under way.

The Department of Educational Publications produces and distributes free textbooks to state schools across Sri Lanka, a scheme that reaches millions of pupils each year. Term-three materials for the Eastern Province were due with schools well before the complaint was filed.

Sources