Minister capitalize in Erica nut racket

Saturday, 04 April 2015

It is being revealed a minister attached to the economic development is involved in many rackets under the pretext of Good Governance. This minister who was promoting Basil Rajapaksa’s theory is revealed taking commissions from many businessmen’s.

It is being a revealed a sum of USD 15,000 has been taken from a container load of Erica nuts. A businessman said Lanka News Web There is 86,000 KG of Erica nut in one container load which costs USD 75,000. However this business was done by businessmen’s from Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Due to the high tax for exporting Erica nut from Indonesia to India, these were brought down to Sri Lanka and exported back to India by forged documents as they were produced in Sri Lanka. The cause for this is due to the low tax rate for Erica nut and the free trade agreement between India and Sri Lanka.

This racket which continued for so many years was stopped by this current minister and given to six of his loyalists under the pretext of facilitating the local business community in the current Good Governance conditioning USD 150,000 per container should be debited to his account. Normally 4-5 containers of Erica nuts been exported in one shipment.

Though it was defined that Sri Lankan is one of the second largest Erica nut exporter to India the people in Sri Lanka could not make large profits as Erica nut is not a famous cultivated crop. (Annual demand of Erica nut in India is more than 10,000 tons) Few mainstream businessmen’s cultivate this as a commercial crop in few acres of lands.  Though major development projects of the previous regime was temporarily suspended by the current regime permissions were granted again for many projects worth billions. The above minister has demanded one billion to be deposited to his account in the US in order to renew these contracts back.

There is a gossip that the minister has demanded a commission of USD 25 for one metric ton of oil exported.

During the previous regime there was large scale commission rackets functioned and the business community borne them with patience. Even in the good governance there are similar rackets functioning in order to please the political hierarchy.