The Hon. Chaminda Wijesiri
Chaminda Wijesiri questioned the Deputy Minister about reports that more than 200 red-labelled containers at the port had been released despite Customs’ role in screening cargo and levying duties under the Finance Ministry. He asked whether the release followed a directive from the President as Finance Minister or from the Deputy Minister, noting public allegations of political influence and concerns raised by Customs officers.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Minister, as a knowledgeable person your stance is not fair. Customs, under the Finance Ministry, has the critical task of screening cargo at the airport and levying duties. Yesterday, more than 200 red-labelled containers at the port were reportedly released. Was there a directive from the President, who is the Line Minister for Finance, or from you? Society says political influence led to their release. Customs officers say—
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Wednesday, 22 January 2025 ·No. 1739261035021938 ·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/5633
Cite as: The Hon. Chaminda Wijesiri. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 22 January 2025. No. 1739261035021938. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/5633