Nalin Bandara makes a statement in P’ment on Hayleys Free Zone containers

By Ashwin Hemmathagama – Our Lobby Correspondent

Shedding light on the controversial garbage containers imported to Sri Lanka, Development Strategies and International Trade Deputy Minister Nalin Bandara yesterday confirmed to Parliament the lack of regulations which led to the controversial imports and acknowledged the need to introduce new laws to prevent a reoccurrence.  

Making a brief clarification on Wednesday in Parliament, the Deputy Minister held that he can only talk about the 130 containers coming under the Board of Investment parked at the Katunayake Export Processing zone, but not the other containers detained at the port. He told Parliament the Extraordinary Gazette notification 1818/30 of 11 July 2013 was correct, but that there were loopholes in the regulatory framework.  

“They have imported used mattresses, which were not prohibited in this Gazette. We need to bring new laws to prevent such imports. We will take legal action if Hayleys has wilfully engaged in this offence. We have given them a week to explain their actions, and three more weeks to re-export the items in question. Most importantly these items are held in a hub, and it will not be released to other parts of the country,” explained the Deputy Minister.

The Deputy Minister also defended the company saying: “Hayleys is not a bad company. Their container import number per month reached 600, and mostly these were imported using the green channel. But it doesn't give the right to be exempt from inspections. Out of all the questionable containers that came in, 29 were re-exported. BoI has instructed them to re-export these items in question in March 2018. But for some reason, the re-export did not take place. They have requested additional time from the BoI. We are currently conducting an internal investigation on the BoI officers responsible.”

“There is no issue in the Gazette. But something has gone wrong in this hub operation. Sri Lanka Customs can inspect these at any moment. These imports have nothing to do with the Singapore Free Trade Agreement, which was signed last year. The items in question were imported between 2017 and 2018,” he added.