Govt. denies allegations of releasing paddy to middlemen

By Chamodi Gunawardana

The Government yesterday refuted allegations made by President Maithripala Sirisena’s brother and rice mill owner Dudley Sirisena that the Government has released rice stocks to middlemen, ending up with a rice shortage.

Authorities have released paddy stocks to rice mill owners following proper procedures after calling for tenders, Paddy Marketing Board Chairman M. B. Dissanayake told DailyFT. 

Dissanayake also highlighted that the releasing of paddy stocks was done after the approval was granted by a special Treasury Board committee and that the list of millers who should receive paddy were approved by the Cabinet. He said that no one could blame the Government saying that the reason for the higher price of rice was the Government misuse of powers to distribute rice to selected markets. 

On Tuesday, major rice mill owner Sirisena claimed that the reason behind the price of rice rising was due to the Rural Economic Affairs Minister not releasing paddy stocks held by the Government into the market in a systematic manner.

He alleged that the minster had not followed the correct tender procedure and had sold the paddy to his friends and the friends of other politicians, and that they sold the paddy at exorbitant rates to the rice millers, including himself.

Dissanayake said the paddy stocks have been issued to rice millers island-wide, including six large-scale mills in the country, while other smallscale millers also were received paddy stocks without delay. 

He said the Government has ensured a fair distribution where all the millers who bid to buy paddy received the stocks.

Commenting over the current progress of the distributing of paddy stocks, Dissanayake said the Paddy Marketing Board has started releasing 156,000 metric tons of Samba, Keeri Samba, Rathu Samba and Nadu stocks since last week.

He said the Government would keep 50,000 metric tons of paddy stocks in case of a shortages.