Cooking oil frauds

Thursday 6th March, 2025

Sri Lanka is no doubt a land like no other––for racketeers and fraudsters. Trade Minister Wasantha Samarasinghe has told Parliament, in answer to a question from SJB MP Chaminda Wijesiri, that substandard coconut oil unfit for human consumption has flooded the local market. He has made no revelation. That coconut oil produced by some companies is substandard is public knowledge, but ordinary people consume it for want of a better alternative.

Minister Samarasinghe informed Parliament yesterday that the Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) had confirmed, after conducting sample tests, the presence of harmful coconut oil in the market. Some local manufacturers released low-quality coconut oil to the market to maximise profit by keeping production costs low, he said.

When MP Wijesiri demanded to know how the government proposed to prevent the substandard coconut oil from entering the market, Minister Samarasinghe said legal action would be instituted against the errant manufacturers. However, some racketeers formed companies to market substandard coconut oil and closed them a few months later to avoid legal action, the Minister said. This racket has been going on for decades, with successive governments doing precious little to eliminate it for obvious reasons. It is hoped that the NPP government will do everything in its power to bring the coconut oil racketeers to justice and protect public health.

It was heartening that the government and the Opposition, for once, discussed an issue of public interest without engaging in a slanging match. However, the two sides were only scratching the surface of the problem of substandard edible oils in the local market. Sri Lanka is awash with low-quality, harmful cooking oils, which are mostly imported. The media has shed light on low-quality palm/vegetable oils, which are mixed with coconut oil or sold separately. Racketeers have been conducting their sordid operations with impunity.

In 2021, aflatoxin, a carcinogen, was detected in coconut oil manufactured by a local company, which was ordered by the CAA to withdraw its product from the market. The issue fizzled out a few days later, and whether the public has been consuming coconut oil contaminated with aflatoxin is anybody’s guess. There is a pressing need for food items to be tested thoroughly on a regular basis to ensure their safety. The CAA should be provided with necessary resources for that purpose. If it is experiencing a shortage of personnel, some of the excess workers in other state institutions can be retrained and attached to it. The government should also seriously consider increasing fines for illegal trading practices such as selling substandard food items that pose a serious threat to public health.

There is another long-standing racket involving edible oil. The consumption of used cooking oil is taken for granted in this country although it is known to have harmful effects on health. Edible oils, when reused, undergo chemical changes, causing the formation of harmful compounds that contribute to inflammation and increase the rise of kidney and heart diseases and cancer, according to medical researchers. In Sri Lanka, cooking oil used in star-class hotels finds its way to restaurants elsewhere, which sell it to wayside eateries, where it is used countless times. Worryingly, food served in eating houses is not tested for harmful chemicals. There is reason to believe that food items such as substandard and recycled cooking oil contribute to the prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in this country, where around 70 percent of the disease burden is due to NCDs, according to the Department of Census and Statistics. NCDs account for about 83% of deaths in Sri Lanka, according to the World Health Organization data.

The NPP government has launched a programme to take a census of crop-raiding animals, especially monkeys, by counting them simultaneously countrywide. Whether it will be able to achieve the desired results remains to be seen, but it may be able to nab errant traders and restaurateurs if it launches simultaneous raids nationwide with the help of the Public Health Inspectors, the CAA personnel and other state employees to ensure food safety. It can be made part of the government’s multi-pronged Clean Sri Lanka Initiative.