8 February 2019 10:30 am
Finance and Mass Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera this week announced that a separate marine division will be set up at Sri Lanka Customs (SLC) to tackle narcotics entering Sri Lanka.
“We agreed to setup a separate marine division at Sri Lanka Customs upon the request of SLC Director General, P.S.M. Charles,” he said. Samaraweera pointed out that SLC has only seized 5 percent of the narcotics of the overall narcotics seized,
while majority of the drugs were captured by the police and armed forces.
He opined that the SLC should have been able to capture more of these narcotics entering Sri Lanka to prevent the country becoming narcotics hub.
Hence, he said that the ministry decided to equip SLC with necessary facilities and resources to prevent narcotics entering the island nation.