The Hon. Rohitha Abeygunawardhana
Rohitha Abeygunawardhana raised concerns that low fuel stocks at Beruwala and other harbours were preventing multi-day fishing vessels from going to sea, warning that the situation would become serious if supplies were not restored. He also asked the Minister to address what he described as a monopoly in the import of VMS devices, noting that prices had risen sharply and requesting that vessel owners be allowed to import them directly.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Minister, further:
¶ 02 This morning, many boats could not set out to fish. At Beruwala and other harbours, fuel shed capacities are very low. A typical multi-day vessel needs about 5,000 litres, up to 12,000 litres at maximum, tied to available ice capacity. Due to the problem since yesterday, vessels cannot go to sea. If this continues and fuel cannot be obtained, it will be a serious issue. Please attend to this.
¶ 03 Also, on VMS devices: currently, only one private entity is allowed to import these devices. Prices now are around Rs. 950,000 to Rs. 1.1 million, whereas about a year ago they were around Rs. 450,000–500,000. At those prices they are still available internationally, and vessel owners could import, but they are not allowed. Please look into this monopoly and remove it.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Saturday, 1 March 2025 ·No. 1741955797040395 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Rohitha Abeygunawardhana. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 1 March 2025. No. 1741955797040395. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/146