By Saman Indrajith

Cooperative Services, Marketing Development and Consumer Services State Minister Lasantha Alagiyawanna on Wednesday told Parliament that there was no truth in the Opposition’s allegations that the government had given undue duty concessions to a private sugar importer.

The Minister admitted that few companies made undue profits, making use of the gazettes issued by the government changing import duties on sugar.  “But there was no fraud. If you insist that there was such untoward incidents then provide us with the details we may investigate it. We know that some companies made some profits but there is no proof of a fraud as alleged by the opposition.”

Minister Alagiyawanna said that during recent years the prices of essential food items had increased in November and December. “In October last year, our government made several policy decisions to give relief to people. On Oct 13 we released a gazette bringing down the 50 rupee import duty on a kilo of sugar to 25 cents. The price of a kilo of sugar was Rs 137 to 138 at that time. We thought that bringing down the tax would result in the lowering of the prices of sugar in the market. That did not happen. There had already been stocks of around 150,000 metric tons in warehouses belonging to the importers and they did not release their stocks. So, a private company came forward and imported sugar under the new price and released them to the market. That was what exactly happened. The decision to bring down the import tax was not taken by the President alone. The Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Trade too were party to it.

“Today, the prices of some essential food items are determined by supply and demand. Market forces determine the prices though we have issued regulations. Though we still have control on the prices of fuel, gas, cigarettes and liquor, the prices of essential food items are determined by market forces. That is the reality. We can change this by allowing certain imports but our decision is to strengthen the local production and industries. Although the people and the Opposition blame us, we are determined to stick to our policy until local production and industries get their hold in the market. We know that this is hard but we have to do so. For example, we can bring down the prices of rice within five days. All we have to do is to import rice at low prices from India but that will not help our farmers. Not a single grain of rice was imported in the year 2020. As a result now our farmers get between 50 to Rs. 55 a kilo of paddy. They used to get only Rs 38 per kilo.

“We know that a certain company made an undue profit but that is the nature of business. The permanent solution for this is to develop the Cooperative shops and Sathosa so that the government would have a network of establishments that have an effect on the market.

“The Opposition alleges that a businessman made Rs 10 billion profit by importing sugar due to the lowering of the import duty. It is not so. The cost of the stock of imported sugar was around Rs. 11 billion so practically there couldn’t have been a 10 billion rupee profit. Today a kilo of sugar is Rs 118. Otherwise, it would have been in the range of Rs 155- 160 a kilo.”