The Hon. R.M. Jayawardhana

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, the audit report states that payments amounting to tens of millions of rupees have been made. Hon. Presiding Member, there are write-offs done without approval totaling Rs. 473.24 million. Not only that, advances paid without work done for a boiler at the Sevanagala Sugar Factory amount to Rs. 80 million. In addition, fuel allowances totaling tens of millions of rupees have been paid. Due to non-compliance with procurement procedures, the Sevanagala Sugar Factory has incurred losses amounting to tens of millions of rupees. A delay cost for capacity expansion has also been paid, exceeding Rs. 90 million. This is special: payments made to purchase furnace oil instead of firewood total Rs. 186.875 million. Moreover, because the boiler was inoperable during the period furnace oil was used, a loss of Rs. 90 million occurred. Are we the ones who did these wrongs? Is it this Government that did so? Hon. Presiding Member, purchases made without properly identifying requirements amount to Rs. 1,353.35 million. Likewise, extra payments total Rs. 2,300 million.

¶ 02 There are also incomplete projects for which money has been paid but cannot be put to use. Such projects include: Poramadalla Tank – about Rs. 4.2 million; Pan Wewa – Rs. 1.85 million; Land Development Yard – Rs. 3.9 million; security fence – Rs. 1.88 million; electricity meter boxes – Rs. 1.35 million; a laboratory – Rs. 0.5 million; an Excise office – Rs. 0.2 million; power generation projects – Rs. 2 million; the central factory project – Rs. 1,280 million. And the largest: the biofertilizer project, where holes were dug and Rs. 14,763.79 million was allocated with no benefit. Also, the Enterprise Resource Management project amounts to Rs. 530 million. This is how Pelwatte–Sevanagala Lanka Sugar Company was run down.

¶ 03 Next, see how many staffers were recruited by distributing personal chits, even for the elephant fence: 520 just for the elephant fence, costing about Rs. 500 million a year. Altogether, there are now over 2,000 excess employees. However, Hon. Presiding Member, HR staff number about 400; field staff, about 400; and the Finance Division has 139 officers. By creating posts and granting promotions like this, Pelwatte–Sevanagala Sugar Company was wrecked, and now we are told it must be privatized.

¶ 04 Hon. Presiding Member, please allow me one more minute.

¶ 05 We have taken firm decisions. We decided to revive this institution. We resolved that no employee would be recruited to Lanka Sugar Company for two years. It has been eight months since the board was appointed in 2020; not a single person has been newly recruited. Three vacancies created by resignations were filled, including the Chairman and two others; no one else was taken. We also decided not to close the institution but to turn it around. Every decision we took was for that institution.

¶ 06 It is said we are importing sugar. Hon. Presiding Member, we are not importing sugar. The licence under our Ministry has not been used to import brown sugar for months. There is much more to say—if we start on the thefts, fraud and corruption that occurred here, we could debate for two days.

¶ 07 Since the Hon. Member mentioned Ethimale, I must respond. Hon. Member, shouldn’t you ask your own relative about that?

¶ 08 How was the Ethimale estate leased, and how was it taken to a point where profits cannot be made? Staff there have spoken to us for days about it. Ethimale was leased; others were leased. Having run it all down, those who claim the National People’s Power Government is privatizing Lanka Sugar Company should know: this Government will not privatize that institution, nor allow it to be privatized. We will strive to bring it up to the level of profit-making institutions and secure employees’ jobs. Farmers are primary. We guarantee all of that. Thank you.