Basil, Thonda swindled from milk cows too

 Tuesday, 28 April 2015

We have received information with regard to another mega deal by the previous regime’s mega dealers. The biggest commission taker of that rule, the then economic development minister Basil Rajapaksa and former livestock development minister

Arumugam Thondaman had swindled money from the importation of milk cows.

As a joint project by the two ministries, 10,000 milch cows were imported from Australia. The value of one cow was 2,400 Australia dollars, approximately Rs. 249,600. But, the mega dealers bought them at Rs. 01 million per head, and pocketed three-times the value of the cows. The swindling lost Rs. 7.5 billion to the state. In addition, Basil had taken about 1,000 milch cows without permission to India, earning more ill-gotten money.

MP P. Digambaram and former MP Mano Ganeshan are to lodge a complaint with the bribery or corruption commission. They were due to visit the commission today, but the visit had to be put off due to the ongoing debate in the House. They will lodge the complaint within days.