Renewal of milch cow imports contract sparks corruption charges
View(s):The renewal of a 2014 contract of the previous regime to import 15,000 more dairy cattle from Australia and New Zealand by the present government has sparked allegations of financial misappropriation.
National Organiser of the All Ceylon Farmers Federation Namal Karunarathna said that his association would complain to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption regarding the release of Rs. 1,720 million as an advance to an Australian company to import dairy cows to the country without any approval from Parliament.
Due to the corrupt nature of the deal the present government has the authority to terminate the agreement without extending it, he pointed out
But without taking any action towards this end, a newspaper advertisement was published to get down 15,000 more cows from the same company, he said.
The original plan of the then Economic Development Ministry was to import over 22,000 milch cows at a cost of Rs. 11.52 billion and distribute two (per family) of the imported cows among Divineguma families, at a reasonable price.
Wellard Rural Exports Company has secured the contract to supply 22,000 dairy cattle worth almost US $100 million to Sri Lanka in 2014.
The company has supplied 200 dairy cattle under this contract during the previous regime in 2015 and the present government has terminated this liquid milk production plan in 2016. Wellard has supplied 4500 dairy cattle by this time.
However a new cabinet paper was submitted by the Minister of Rural Economy on March 2017 and the cabinet of ministers has given approval to implement the same project by importing 15,000 milch cows.
The government has imported 2000 milch cattle under this initiative in 2017 from New Zealand via this company.
Of this batch, around 750 cows were distributed among several mega companies without handing it over to selected medium scale diary entrepreneurs at a reasonable price in accordance with the dairy development project.
Diary Farmer Societies have vehemently protested against this government’s move alleging corruption and malpractices as a result of deviating from the diary development plan.
According to the plan the ministry intended that milch cows should be distributed among medium scale dairy farmers in Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, selected areas in Uva Province and Bandarawela areas.
Each animal is worth approximately Rs. 450,000. Initially the plan was to provide the cows to dairy farmers at Rs. 200,000 each.
(BS)