Cost of Living committee to look into resolving milk powder crisis

Deputy Minister Buddhika Pathirana has said that the Cabinet's cost of Living sub-committee would meet next week to discuss a solution to the milk powder crisis that has resulted in a shortage of milk powder imports.

Speaking in Parliament today (Jan 05), the Deputy Minister of Industries and Commerce revealed that certain imported milk powder samples are suspected to have been adulterated with swine oil.

Further, he said that there are several cases of imported sub-standard milk powder being reportedly sold in the market.

"We sent these samples to a local company to carry out a test in order to determine the quality. However they refused to carry out tests" the Deputy Minister claimed.

He added that this has created suspicion whether milk powder importers had bribed the company to refrain from conducting the test.

However, he said that the samples of milk powder have now been sent to an international company in order to carry out the test.