PMB owes Rs. 6,535m to four banks

by Uditha Kumarasinghe

The third report of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) tabled in Parliament by its Chairman D.E.W. Gunasekara has revealed that the Paddy Marketing Board (PMB) has to pay Rs.6,535 million to the Bank of Ceylon, People’s Bank, National Savings Bank and the Regional Savings Bank for the loans taken.

The third report of the COPE which had covered its oversight activities from October 2014 to March 2015 has said that the PMB had also incurred a net loss of Rs.711.5 million from the export of 22,950 metric tons of rice to the United Arab Emirates.

The PMB had not taken steps to recover Rs.507,596,775 due from eight Government institutions. It has also not recovered the advances amounting to Rs.150,676,283.

The Suspense Account balance of PMB which had been Rs.2.1 billion in 2010 had been increased up to Rs.3.1 billion in 2011. In spite of having a total capacity of nearly 236,000 metric tons in stores, only 4564 metric tons had been purchased by the PMB in 2014 due to its inability to compete with the private sector, the report said.

Meanwhile, a longstanding debtor balance of Rs.65 million was observed in connection with stocks of paddy handed over to various private millers for processing. But they had neither returned the rice stocks nor paid the value of rice stocks.

The COPE in its observations has also outlined the annual reports of the PMB from 2011 had not yet been tabled due to its inability to authenticate certain account balances related to the period before re-establishment.

In 2006, the functions of the institution had been suspended and transferred to the Sri Lanka Agricultural Products Marketing Authority. However, it had been re-activated in 2007 and a number of unidentified account balances relating to the period before 2008 had been brought forward without proper verification.

COPE Chairman D.E.W. Gunasekara presenting the third COPE report in Parliament said that the committee had completed 627 examinations within less than five years from June 2010 to March 2015. It is an unprecedented record in the history of the legislature as compared with the 670 examinations over the entire period of 31 years since the inception of COPE in 1979 up to 2010.