The Hon. (Dr.) Nishantha Samaraweera

¶ 01 Madam Deputy Chairperson, thank you. Listening to Hon. Marikkar and Hon. Ajith P. Perera reminded me of village elders telling children who cry for no reason to check if they’ve been pricked by a thorn. This motion is baseless and wastes Parliament’s time. They held a protest this morning with barely 14 of their 40-odd MPs.

¶ 02 A country’s progress is hindered when its Parliament is misled by an Opposition peddling lies and panic. The motion itself is false—for instance, it cites “12.32 million tonnes” of coal for a season; actual annual requirement is about 1.5 million tonnes after accounting for earlier supplier obligations.

¶ 03 It also claims procurement ignored Auditor-General and COPF guidance. In fact, since 2010/2011, this is the only process that has adhered to those recommendations. The Opposition is hurt because we followed policy rigorously, whereas earlier years imported coal without valid tenders, causing about Rs. 16,000 million in losses that could not be recovered due to invalid contracts. In 2009 a tender was started and then halted to hand back supplies to the previous firm; in 2011 the winning bidder was set aside in favour of the old importer. That is the record.

¶ 04 On the current tender: procurement guidelines were amended in 2023 in line with Auditor-General’s observations (e.g., reducing the prior three-year 1 million tonne threshold to widen competition). We did not otherwise relax conditions; GCV minimum of 5,900 remained. Coal is a natural resource—its qualities vary, thus ranges and penalty formulas govern acceptance. If GCV falls below 5,900, penalties are doubled. For the first shipment, a USD 2.1 million penalty was levied.

¶ 05 Load Port and Discharge Port Reports are relevant; Norochcholai’s lab is not an accredited lab for acceptance purposes, so we rely on an accredited Indian lab. The first cargo failed there and was penalised.

¶ 06 This Government is fighting corruption. Sri Lanka improved in the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index from 121 to 107. Independent polling (Verité Research) indicates the public recognises Government efforts against corruption. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Sri Lanka is the first Asian country whose Government asked the IMF for a governance assessment to help eliminate corruption, and praised the Government’s trust-building.