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Kumudesh accuses Health Ministry mandarins of more shenanigans and demands lifting of restrictions on rapid antigen tests

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5 years ago

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By Rathindra Kuruwita

The Ministry of Health must remove restrictions on private labs to conduct rapid antigen tests, College of Medical Laboratory Science (CMLS) President, Ravi Kumudesh told The Island yesterday.

Kumudesh said that in June 2021, the Health Ministry had issued a circular banning private labs from conducting the rapid antigen tests. Later, the Ministry allowed around eight private labs to conduct those tests.

“The Ministry also insisted on the signatures of microbiologists on reports. Now, these labs, on average, have to pay Rs. 250 per report to a microbiologist. There really is no need for a microbiologist to oversee the process and given that we only have a few of them; they are actually not supervising the tests. This requirement was put in place for microbiologists to make money,” he said.

The CMLS President added that the circular banning the rapid antigen tests were issued at a time when the country was going through a Level 3 pandemic, but now the pandemic was at level 5 severity.

“It is obvious that these guidelines do not suit the ground realities of today. A lot of medical experts have also pointed this out and they too have called for the lifting of the ban. The Health Ministry bigwigs are not making the necessary changes because these regulations are in place to make a selected group of people rich. Most of the guidelines and regulations issued by the Ministry are not about controlling the pandemic,” he said.

Kumudesh urged the government to expand the rapid PCR facility to all state-run hospitals and to move towards providing home testing facilities. The best way to beat the pandemic was to test as many people as possible and isolate the infected, he said.

“This is what China does. We can easily expand our testing capacity three times without investing in new machinery. We have given a detailed report on how this could be done to the Ministry, but nothing has been done,” he said.


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Report on the Final Budgetary Condition (Annual Report) – 2025 submited to parliament

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2026/06/16

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As per the provisions of section 51 of the Public Finance Managaement Act No. 44 of 2024, the public should be issued with a report on the final budgetary situation for each year and, the report is then published in the official website of the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.

Thereby the report has to be submitted to the Parliament. The final budgetary situation report (Annual Report) – 2025 has been prepared by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and published. The report contains the Public Finance Policy, strategies and challenges, economic trends in 2025, macro – economic and socio – economic indicators covering all sectors of the economy as well as description on the global economic growth.

Furthermore, it accompanies a detailed description government revenue and expenditure, cash flow management, financing the budget deficit and the loan structure.

Accordingly, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the resolution furnished by the President in his capacity as the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development to submit the Report on the Final Budgetary Condition (Annual Report) – 2025 to Parliament.

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Cabinet nod to accept increased Loan Grant provided by the Asian Development Bank under Policy Based Loan Facilities – 2026

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3 hours ago

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2026/06/16

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Approval of the Cabinet of Ministers was granted at their meeting held on 16.03.2026 to obtain United States Dollars 380 million from the policy – based loan facilities of the Asian Development Bank in the year 2026.

United States Dollars 100 million out of it is allocated for Trade, Investment and Industries Development Programme – Sub Programme 1. However, amidst the economic uncertainty resulting from the current Middle East crisis and the climatic tragedies, the Asian Development Bank has agreed to assist
by increasing a supplementary financing package of United States Dollars 100 million so that it will beMincreased up to United States Dollars 200 million.

Accordingly, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the resolution furnished by the President in his capacity as the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development to take further measures to obtain the said loan grant.

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Submission of Revenue Protection Order Prepared under the Provisions of the Revenue Protection Act No. 19 of 1962 to the Parliament for its approval.

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3 hours ago

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2026/06/16

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Approval of the Cabinet of Ministers was given at the meeting held on 23.02.2026 to impose the custom import duty amounts under four (04) categories as 0%, 10%, 20%, and 30% which had been executed only under three (03) categories in order to increase the target export income of the country, to execute the
recommendations of the national customs duty policies committee, and to implement new national sub division customs codes for promoting the local agricultural and industrial sector.

Imposing provisions in relation to the above, the Revenue Protection Order – No. 01/2026 under the Revenue Protection Act No. 19 of 1962 has been published in the extraordinary gazette notification No. 2478/03 of 03.03.2026.

Accordingly, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the resolution furnished by the President in his capacity as the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development to submit the said revenue protection order to Parliament for its concurrence.

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