The Hon. Anura Karunathilaka
The Hon. Anura Karunathilaka stated that the fuel distribution issue has historical causes and was not created by an administrative decision of the current Government. He said CPC has sufficient stocks, is releasing substantial volumes, and that queues had eased, assuring the public there would be no shortage. He argued that the central issue concerns whether commissions can be paid on publicly collected tax, noting that audit reports and court proceedings indicate commissions on the tax-included final price are improper, and rejected attempts to create panic over fuel availability.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Mr. Speaker, this is not a problem created by an administrative decision of the current Government; it has a history, as clarified by the Leader of the House and the State Minister of Finance. There is no issue regarding fuel stocks. Although there were some queues last night, by this morning many had eased. The CPC Chairman confirms substantial volumes are being released. We tell the public: CPC is acting responsibly to avoid any shortage.
¶ 02 Fundamentally, the question is whether commissions can be paid on tax collected from the public. Audit reports and court proceedings indicate that paying commissions on the final (tax-included) price is wrong. If anyone is attempting to manufacture a crisis and create panic, we cannot accept that.
¶ 03 In the coming days, there will be no issue in fuel distribution and availability to the public.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Saturday, 1 March 2025 ·No. 1741955797040395 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Anura Karunathilaka. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 1 March 2025. No. 1741955797040395. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/235