Prez should intervene to eliminate monopoly of rice market: MP Sunil Handunnetti

Legal action should be taken against the two main millers, who were key members of the rice mafia, Parliamentarian Sunil Handunnetti said at a media conference.

He said a situation had been created to penalise rice retailers and to take them to courts claiming that these sellers had violated the regulations of price control and prosecuted them at a court of law. He said that the prevailing rice shortage was created artificially and manipulated one.

"According to our observations, this is not an issue with the retailers because they had to sell their rice stocks based on the price they paid for the stocks. The wholesale sellers had to sell their stocks according to the price of the rice millers," he said. "The retail sellers were not responsible for this price hike. But, the top person who is in this rice monopoly should be identified. There are not many persons on the top of this rice mafia. Action should be taken to investigate these two individuals," he said.

“The President should be able to identify two individuals who were involved in the rice mafia by inspecting their names from rice sacks in the market,” he said.

"There is no rice shortage in the market and there are extra stocks of paddy that had been stocked in warehouses in Polonnaruwa, which are larger than the oil tanks.

“That paddy should be converted to rice and released to the market. Those paddy stocks were collected from farmers at a cheaper price by those two persons.

“If the President wants to stop the rice mafia, he can do it at once. For that, he should take action to disintegrate the rice mafia,” he said. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)