The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption has told the Colombo Magistrate’s Court that it has not finished investigating an alleged loss of more than US$6.7 million to the government over the importation of substandard organic fertilizer during Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency.
The case has been filed against former Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage and other suspects over a shipment of 20,000 metric tonnes of substandard organic fertilizer from a Chinese company, Ada Derana reported on Tuesday.
More time sought
The matter was taken up before Colombo Chief Magistrate Asanga S. Bodaragama. Commission officials told the court that investigations were still under way and asked for additional time to complete the inquiry and file their findings.
The Chief Magistrate ordered the case called again on December 4 and directed the commission to report the progress of its investigations to the court on that date.
Aluthgamage was produced before the court by prison officials. Ada Derana reported that he is currently serving a prison sentence in connection with a separate case, which the outlet did not identify.
The 2021 import programme
The shipment sits within the fertilizer import programme that followed the Rajapaksa government’s April 2021 ban on chemical fertilizer and its shift to organic inputs — a policy widely blamed for the collapse in yields that preceded the 2022 economic crisis. Consignments from China were rejected by Sri Lankan plant quarantine authorities after tests detected bacterial contamination, triggering a payment dispute that ran for months.
Ada Derana did not name the Chinese supplier, identify the other suspects, or set out how the US$6.7 million figure was arrived at. It also did not say what charges, if any, have been framed.
Aluthgamage has not been convicted in this case, and the allegations against him and the other suspects remain untested in court. December 4 is now the next date on which the commission must account for a file that has been open since the previous administration left office.
