NMSJ wants govt. to punish racketeers

National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ) has flayed the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government for its failure to take meaningful measures to control waste, corruption and irregularities.

Sunil Jayasekera has, in his capacity as General Secretary, NMSJ, in a media statement, faulted the government for failing to recover losses amounting to Rs 16 bn due to the slashing of Special Commodity Levy (SCL) imposed on imported white sugar.

Former Speaker Karu Jayasuriya leads the NMSJ.Jayasekera has pointed out that against the backdrop of that failure another large-scale fraud in SCL had been perpetrated this month by increasing the import duty immediately after major importers cleared large stocks of white sugar.

The duty had been increased to Rs 50 a per kilo importers cleared stocks.In the previous instance in Oct 2020, the then government reduced SCL on a kilo of white sugar from Rs 50 to 25 cents. Jayaskera said two parliamentary watchdog committees and the Auditor General reported staggering Rs 16 bn loss in revenue but the government was sleeping on it, Jayaskera said.The NMSJ asked the government to punish all those responsible for rackets in the import of sugar, flour and other essential items, including medicine  (SF)