JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake accused the Government of favouring rice mafia groups instead of protecting the consumers and farmers. Addressing a media briefing yesterday, he said that the Government’s price control has not benefitted the farmers nor the consumers but only favoured the powerful rice mill owners.
MP Dissanayake said within a few months the most number of gazette notifications were issued pertaining to the price of rice.
He said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa visited rice vendors and staged media spectacles while the Chairman of the Consumer Affairs Authority also visited rice vendors and large-scale mills.
MP Dissanayake accused the Minister of Agriculture of failing to grant the benefit of the price control to the farmer or the consumer, He pointed out that while the government had imposed a controlled price of Rs. 50 for paddy, the farmers had to sell their paddy to the rice mill owners at low prices. He said that after they had purchased the rice at low prices from farmers the government had removed the price control and now the rice mills have increased the price of rice depriving the consumers of the benefit of rice purchased at low prices.
Dissanayake said rice prices in the market cannot be controlled by issuing gazette notifications and that it could only be done by breaking the monopoly in the market. However, he accused the Government of standing in favour of the rice mill owners.
The JVP Leader noted that if the government is to break the rice monopoly, competition should be created in the market. “The Government has failed to come up with a proper mechanism to handle this situation,” he said.