Around 10 top officials of leading fertilizer companies are to be arrested by the CID within days over a scam that runs into more than Rs. one billion.
Sources at the National Fertilizer Secretariat say that among them are leaders of five companies and a female official.
Instead of providing fertilizer to farmers at subsidized prices, they had been selling it at high prices to industrial companies in Horana, Kegalle and Madampe since 2018.
This has come to light pursuant to a complaint that urea fertilizer, imported at Rs. 2,500 per sack and should have been given to farmers at Rs. 1,100, had been sold at more than Rs. 3,500 by faking documents.
The fertilizer consignment in question had been imported by 18 licensed companies.
(lankadeepa.lk)