Treasury uses tea money for other needs

It seems that everyone in Sri Lanka’s premier export commodity – tea, has a problem. From the big and small producer, buyer, exporter and the government, a top government official said.

Lalith Hettiarachchi, Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB), in a well researched article (see Page 2), also argues that it’s unfair for the Treasury to have taken away the power of the tea cess coming direct to the SLTB. Now it is collected by the Treasury and then distributed to the three state agencies involved with tea.

He said the three agencies were unhappy about this arrangement because part of the cess is used by the Treasury for non-tea related spending. He said the money is also not available on time particularly for capital expenditure and promotional work.