The Hon. Ravi Karunanayake

¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, the detailed answer by the Hon. Minister shows that 65% of essential goods required by the country are still being imported. This applies to consumer goods as well. When insurance and freight costs rose rapidly recently, and prices began to surge, what measures were taken to protect the consumer? Wars like this have occurred before. Although previous governments were blamed for incompetence over the past 76 years, it now appears there are practical problems here as well.

¶ 02 What actions have you taken to provide goods to consumers at fair prices, Hon. Minister? Over the past one and a half years, prices have increased by 25%–30%. I appreciate that you initially imposed maximum retail prices on many goods. Now, you have moved toward price determination through competition, allowing some normalization of prices.

¶ 03 My supplementary is this: rapidly rising prices are affected by insurance, freight, and the depreciation of the dollar. The Central Bank says inflation is gone; yet prices are clearly higher. How do you explain this?