Palm oil importers lobbying govt. for pre-New Year tax revision

by Chaminda Silva

National Movement for Consumer Rights Protection (NMCRP) urged government last week to take immediate action to prevent a move by a group of businessmen to release coconut oil adulterated with palm oil to the market.

Addressing a press conference in Colombo on Friday, NMCRP President Ranjith Withanage said that the government had sometime back imposed an import tax on palm oil following exposure that it was being mixed with coconut oil. In the meantime the government also brought down import taxes on coconut oil.

“This prevented the businessmen adulterating coconut oil. Now there is a move by them to convince the government that there would be shortage of coconut oil in the market. They seek to import palm oil for mixing with coconut oil in view of increased demand during the Sinhala-Hindu new year period. The government should prevent this move,” he said.

Withanage said Sri Lanka used to import nearly 200,000 tonnes of palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia annually.

Coconuts accounts for approximately 12 per cent of all agricultural produce in Sri Lanka with the total area under cultivation covering 409,244 hectares producing about three billion nuts per year, he said. The country’s annual requirement is 4.9 billion nuts – 1.8 billion for consumption, 1.8 billion to mill coconut oil and 1.3 billion to be exported.

Usually the first couple of months of the year are considered the off season resulting in shortage of coconuts in the market. A group of businessmen is targeting that shortage to get the government to revise the tax.

It is claimed that palm oil is carcinogenic. For the sake of the health of consumers, we hope that the government would not give in to the businessmen lobbying for a tax revision,” Withanage added.