Joint Opposition accuses Minister Harrison of causing Rs. 10 b loss in paddy sales

By Chamodi Gunawardana

The Joint Opposition yesterday lodged a complaint at the Bribery Commission against Rural Economic Affairs Minister P. Harrison for causing the Government a loss of Rs. 10 billion by selling paddy stocks to produce animal feed. 

This is the seventh complaint lodged against a member of the current administration by the Joint Opposition as part of its campaign to identify who it alleges to be the Government’s ten most corrupt members.

The complainant, Joint Opposition MP Jayantha Samaraweera, claimed that the Government had lost billions through the transaction, with the middlemen earning a profit of Rs. 1.6 billion. 

Samaraweera alleged that the Minister had advised the Paddy Marketing Board to release a stock of paddy bought by the Government under the guarantee price scheme to the three main millers of the country without proper Cabinet approval.

“At the time the Government had 200,000 tonnes of excess paddy and the Government needed to release it in order to empty the warehouses. Then Harrison had named three mills owners who were his friends to sell the paddy stock without calling for tenders,” he said.

Samaraweera claimed that by selling the stocks as animal feed for Rs. 24, absorbing Rs. 18 for each kilogramme, the Government had incurred a total loss of Rs. 3.6 billion. 

He also stated that Minister Harrison had directed the Paddy Marketing Board to release paddy to his friends and the friends of well-known politicians of the current Government. 

Samaraweera also charged, as per paper advertisements published by the Paddy Marketing Board, the millers had agreed to buy an unpolished kilogramme of Kira Samba for Rs. 57, one kilogramme of Samba for Rs. 51 and one kilogramme of Nadu for Rs. 40. However, suddenly the board had issued a director board paper on 30 December 2015 saying that the Minister had asked them not to sell paddy stocks in that price range.

He said Dudley Sirisena, the brother of President Maithripala Sirisena and a large-scale rice mill owner, had then purchased the paddy at a price of Rs. 34 per kilogramme from those three companies resulting in a profit of Rs. 2.2 billion.

He further claimed that the Paddy Marketing Board had released the stock of paddy to be used as animal feed without even conducting a quality assessment. 

“Instead of old paddy unsuitable for human consumption, the paddy board had generously given away a high quality stock to three private companies,” he alleged. 

Furthermore, Samaraweera said on a separate occasion, that when a kilogramme of paddy was Rs. 45 in the market, the Paddy Marketing Board had sold 80,000 tonnes of paddy until prices increased to Rs. 55. 

“Instead of selling paddy for Rs. 55 when prices increased, the board had sold them for the previous price of Rs. 45, creating more losses for the State,” he charged. 

Outlining these allegations, Samaraweera yesterday lodged a complaint at the Bribery Commission against Minister Harrison, the Paddy Marketing Board Chairman, a powerful Minister and a top Finance Ministry official. He has demanded that the commission conduct an independent investigation into the matter. 

Meanwhile, MP Mahindananda Aluthgamage claimed that the Joint Opposition would like to remind the Government that it did not obtain a licence to rob public property by winning the 2015 Presidential Elections. He said that the Government had abused its powers to rob public funds.

Aluthgamage urged the Bribery Commission to initiate an investigation against six other Ministers whose names the Joint Opposition had previously submitted to the commission. 

Earlier the Joint Opposition had filed complaints at the Bribery Commission and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, Foreign Employment Minister Thalatha Athukorale, Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama and Public Enterprise Development Minister Kabir Hashim.