The Hon. Namal Rajapaksa, Attorney-at-Law

Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna· National List· 8 January 2025 ·Oral question: Oral Question: Clean Sri Lanka Programme and Related Questions to Prime Minister

Cost of LivingAgriculture

AI summary generated by gpt-5.5

Namal Rajapaksa sought clarification from the Prime Minister on whether the fertilizer-related support for paddy farmers was Rs. 25,000 or Rs. 15,000, noting that harvesting was imminent and delayed fertilizer use would be ineffective. He questioned how the Government would provide funds given reported statements by the Deputy Minister of Finance about a lack of money, and asked whether payments would continue after harvest. He also warned of a possible rice shortage and alleged an emerging problem in the rice supply chain affecting consumers, asking for the Government’s plan to address it.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Hon. Prime Minister, is it 25,000 rupees, or 15,000 rupees?

¶ 02 Hon. Prime Minister, I am not challenging you. However, within the next two weeks the paddy will be harvested. If fertilizer is not applied to fields on time, applying it later is useless. Therefore, what measures are you taking in this regard? There is also some confusion linked to the statement by the Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr. Speaker. When the Deputy Minister of Finance says there is no money, is that not a problem?

¶ 03 My second supplementary question is this. We need clarity on whether the money will be provided even after the paddy has been harvested.

¶ 04 Hon. Prime Minister, I have no issue if the Hon. Minister is allowed to reply. I am raising this with the Hon. Prime Minister because the question was directed to her.

¶ 05 Now, there could again be a rice shortage. We spoke about a rice mafia and a paddy mafia in Sri Lanka, Mr. Speaker. When you look at the statistics and the rejections at Sathosa, it is clear that a new mafia is emerging. The burden is entirely on the consumer. Hon. Prime Minister, what is the Government’s plan to address this?

Provenance

Source: Hansard, Wednesday, 8 January 2025 ·No. 1737023464031571 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
Page · column: not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
Permalink: /lk/speeches/27562

View source PDF ↗ Suggest a correction

Cite as: The Hon. Namal Rajapaksa, Attorney-at-Law. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 8 January 2025. No. 1737023464031571. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/27562