The Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe - Minister of Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development

¶ 01 Since Hon. Gayantha Karunatilleka would also want to know, let me clarify, Hon. Presiding Member. The Sathosa tender was the first tender—for 5,200 metric tons of rice. We called the tender as per Government procedure. Two bidders submitted. One bid for 3,750 MT, the other for 1,500 MT. Under Government tender procedure, the full 5,200 MT must be supplied in one go, so we could not split between two. Thus, the issue was that suppliers could not meet the requirement; the tender was not “rejected.” The bidders did not apply in conformity with the tender requirements. In the second tender, no suppliers came forward. The third tender was rejected due to quality. So, it is not the case that tenders were rejected repeatedly as claimed.