Saturday 14th June, 2025
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is reported to have said, quoting the Attorney General’s (AG’s) Department that the questionable reduction of the special commodity levy (SCL) on imported sugar in 2020, during the SLPP government, did not amount to a criminal offence. The AG’s Department has reportedly directed the CID to conduct further investigations to find out whether anyone gained undue benefits from the duty reduction. Why the probe dragged on for years is the question. There was ample time for the suspects to cover their tracks.
The CID has belaboured the obvious. The SCL reduction per se was not an offence—criminal or otherwise. The Cabinet of Minister has the authority and discretion to increase or decrease SCLs. What is really at issue is the economic fallout of the SCL decrease in question and the undue benefits that accrued therefrom to a few sugar importers connected to the SLPP government.
One can only hope that the CID and the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption will conduct a thorough probe into what has come to be dubbed the sugar scam, which was one of the issues the NPP flogged very hard during its election campaigns.
The CID and the national anti-graft commission have not been free from political pressure. So, it is possible that the present-day rulers do not want a precedent created with the SCL reduction at issue being deemed a punishable offence, for they themselves stand accused of having manipulated import duties for the sake of its cronies among big-time rice millers.
What the critics of the SCL reduction have said is that the SLPP government adopted that measure after ensuring that all sugar importers, except its financiers among them, had replenished their stocks and could not take delivery of any more shipments of sugar. When it slashed the SCL on sugar imports from Rs. 50 to 25 cents a kilo, its cronies had placed orders for sugar and/or some of their shipments were on their way to Colombo. The SCL was a well calculated move that stood the SLPP financiers in good stead at the expense of the state coffers; it is believed that among the beneficiaries of the questionable SLC reduction were those who sponsored the propaganda events held by the SLPP ahead of the 2019 presidential election.
It will not be difficult for the CID to figure out who actually benefited from the SLC reduction. All it will have to do is to ascertain information about the sugar importers who placed orders immediately before the slashing of the SLC and about those whose shipments were reaching the Colombo Port when the SCL decrease was announced.
The SLPP government made the SLC decrease out to be a move intended to bring the sugar prices down for the benefit of the public, but Basil Rajapaksa himself admitted in a television interview that the sugar prices had not come down. The CID should also find out what the sugar prices were before and after the SLC reduction. It has been reported in the newspapers that the sugar prices did not drop despite the decrease in the SCL because most of the sugar importers had purchased sugar prior to the SLC reduction and did not want to adjust prices and suffer losses. The government craftily served the interests of the sugar importers, including its financiers by allowing the sugar prices to be kept at the previous level while its cronies were maximizing profits at the expense of the public and the economy. Such politically-motived moves made a huge contribution to the country’s worst-ever economic crisis, and they must be probed thoroughly and the culprits brought to justice.
