The Hon. Namal Rajapaksa, Attorney-at-Law
Namal Rajapaksa argued that successive governments, including those led by Mahinda Rajapaksa and later administrations, had supported farmers through fertilizer subsidies, paddy purchasing and storage measures. He urged current Ministers who previously advocated for farmers from the Opposition to fulfil their promises in government, specifically referring to past claims that paddy should be priced at around Rs. 150–154 per kilogram.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Chairperson, thank you for the opportunity.
¶ 02 Both your camp and ours have always stood for the farmers. In 2005, when you formed a Government with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a kilo of paddy was Rs. 8. Farmers cried out then. The Government acted to give due respect and income to them. Fertilizer at Rs. 3,500 was given according to the times, and our country began to be self-sufficient. In 2015, even when President Mahinda Rajapaksa lost, the then Government—your lot—stored paddy even at the Mattala Airport, saying there was no storage space. You remember that. Nevertheless, every Government since then has spoken for farmers. You too, from the Opposition, fought for farmers. I trust that as Ministers in Government you will continue that struggle and fulfill the promises you made.
¶ 03 You then believed a kilo of paddy should be at least Rs. 150–154, didn’t you, Hon. Namal Karunaratne, Deputy Minister? The statistics you prepared then said so.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Wednesday, 12 March 2025 ·No. 1744106534050382 ·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/9482
Cite as: The Hon. Namal Rajapaksa, Attorney-at-Law. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 12 March 2025. No. 1744106534050382. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/9482