A recent audit report has revealed that the Road Development Authority (RDA) lost over Rs. 4,614 million in revenue due to ticket irregularities on expressways during the four-year-and-nine-month period from November 2019 to July 2024.

Although more than 133.8 million entry tickets were issued during this period, the audit revealed that exit tickets were not issued for over 18.2 million vehicles. Consequently, the report highlighted that the daily revenue loss from the expressways amounted to nearly Rs. 1 million.

According to the audit, despite various tactics being used to misappropriate expressway revenue and commit fraud, expressway management had taken no action to identify the responsible staff, including cashiers, initiate disciplinary proceedings, or prevent such irregularities.

The audit report further disclosed that cashiers working at entry gates had issued 241,964 tickets by altering the vehicle classifications during the aforementioned period.

The report noted an increasing trend in such errors since 2019, attributing it to the absence of adequate internal control mechanisms to prevent vehicle-category alterations arising from cashier discretion or negligence.

Meanwhile, the report also stated that local and foreign loans amounting to Rs. 611,374 million had been obtained for the construction of the expressway network.

The average annual net profit of the expressways was calculated at Rs. 3,560.62 million. The audit observed that, based on this figure, it would take more than 171 years to repay the principal loan amount alone, excluding interest payments.

Accordingly, the audit report underscored that the revenue generated from the expressways is insufficient to cover both the loan principal and interest repayments.