Is Sri Lanka an industrial country? An agricultural country? Or is it a service economy country? Or is it a country that is 100% dependent on the tourism industry, now we have to think six or seven times. (Sri Lanka Latest News)
The reason for that is because it can be seen that Sri Lanka has applied very little weight to agriculture in the last few years. Therefore, agricultural projects are launched in Sri Lanka very ineffectively. Several people are appointed as ministers in relation to agriculture. And there are hundreds of institutions related to agriculture.
An Agricultural Research Officer has been appointed to each Gramseva division. But how much has Sri Lanka’s agriculture developed during all this? We know that many countries in the world have developed agriculture. Countries like Ethiopia today used agriculture to strengthen their economy.
The reason for that is that they have improved their agriculture by introducing crops that can be cultivated in their areas and developing methods for that. Even the countries where there is not a drop of water in the world, where water does not come from the earth, have developed agriculturally today.
But at what level is Sri Lanka in the agricultural sector today? When we talk about this, we immediately remember the decision made by former President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa regarding fertilizers.
This decision is very controversial. Many people are responsible for this. Many people have worked to improve this decision so far. Also, we don’t even know if some of the monks who launched big projects to stop the destruction of the earth due to fertilizers are there today or not. But Sri Lanka’s agriculture also fell from where it was.
Fertilizer ships were brought there, and money was paid for them. Through that, our economy became wilder. Then our production started to decrease. We also lost our revenue from the products.
Meanwhile, another news has come out. That is that the government has paid four crore ninety eight lakh rupees to the supplier for the import of nano nitrogen liquid fertilizer. To be precise, the audit office declares that an amount of four crore ninety eight hundred forty six thousand four hundred six rupees has been paid in this way and has not been collected by the 30th of January of this year.
100,224 bottles of nano nitrogen liquid fertilizer to be imported on 18 October 2021 to the supplier at USD per bottle. It is said that an amount of twenty five crore thirty three lakh one thousand one hundred twenty six rupees was paid at 12.45 each. Then the price of a bottle is USD. Efforts have been made to reduce it to 10.
That means USD They have managed to make a reduction of 2.45. Accordingly, the excess amount paid to the supplier was not recovered and C/S. The audit report also states that those values were not accounted for as receivables in the final accounts of the Colombo Commercial Fertilizer Company.
Now we have to question again what we did by appointing COP committees and KOPA committees. The saddest thing about this is that during the period of 2021-2023, we unfortunately collapsed our economy due to lack of dollars. There was a time when our central bank went without a penny.
We lost oil because we could not pay in dollars. We ended up paying for the incoming oil tanker in dollars. Why could we not recover the money in such a situation? USD Who had decided to buy a 500 ml bottle of nano nitrogen for 12.45? Regarding this, the management of the relevant fertilizer company has mentioned that the Ministry of Agriculture has decided to import nano nitrogen liquid fertilizer due to the urgent need of the country on the approval of the Council of Ministers.
An emergency in the country was created because of the problem that you remember about this fertilizer in the country. Started launching organic fertilizer projects. He said that organic fertilizers are needed. The chemical fertilizers brought to Sri Lanka until then were stopped.
Our former president took a strong decision to stop chemical fertilisers. At this moment, we feel like questioning whether he was forced to do it if he couldn’t do it.
However, the amount that has been paid in excess so far has been calculated as the amount to be paid to the Treasury. The company has mentioned to the audit that there was no commercial transaction here.
At the time of this transaction, Mr. Mahindananda Aluthgamage was the Minister of Agriculture and Mr. Shashindra Rajapaksa was the Minister of State.
Because they are still in the top seats in this government, and because they have so many positions, because we believe that their eyes can see and their ears can hear, we are asking at this moment where is the money for the country? Are these paid for and brought from home? Out of pocket? Gentlemen, it doesn’t matter if they paid from their own economy, from what they earned, and were unable to collect it, we are not sad.
But don’t forget that what you have paid is the money of the people of a country who barely make ends meet with the little money they have saved without eating or drinking.
