Wheat flour importers exploit public, look after interests of ruling party politicians – JVP

“Benefit of drops in world market wheat prices not passed on to consumers; pledge to grant import permits to other businesses reneged on

By Saman Indrajith

JVP-led NPP leader MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Parliament yesterday that a former government had permitted monopoly in the sale of wheat flour that exists in the country and it was exploiting consumers.

“It is a known fact that Prima Company has been funding election campaigns of successive governments’. This government has allowed it to earn undue profit without passing the benefits to the consumers in the hope of receiving election campaign money,” MP Dissanayake said.

The JVP leader said the local wheat flour prices were much higher than those in the international market. He demanded to know why the government had failed to pass the benefit of drops in the global wheat flour prices on to the local consumers.

MP Dissanayake said the two companies were making unconscionable profits at the expense of the general public.

Currently, a kilo of wheat flour was being sold at Rs. 210 in the country, whereas it could be sold at a significantly lower price of Rs. 160 even with a tax of Rs. 35, Dissanayake said.

Dissanayake said that the cost of importing wheat flour from Turkey was Rs. 110. Despite the reduction of the Rs. 35 tax on each kilo of wheat flour, its benefit had not accrued to consumers.

MP Dissanayake accused the government of reneging on its promise to provide import permits to other businessmen. That, he claimed, had led to the continuation of a monopolistic situation favouring two multinational companies.

from The Island https://ift.tt/1k0LdN2