Member of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) Nimal Lanza said that the Animal Products Department is using various strategies when steps are taken to provide relief to egg consumers while ensuring fair price for producers.
“When we stipulate a control price for eggs, the Department issues one report and when we try to import eggs,another report is given to COPE," he said. Lanza said that a decision should be made subsequent to studying these reports. He made this comment on January 25 while expressing his views during the COPE meeting.
“We have to identify clearly why the Ministry of Trade decided to issue a Gazette Notification regarding eggs. Increasing the price of eggs on a dailys is a great problem for consumers. We cannot talk about this ignoring that fact,” he said.
He stressed the need of ensuring better price for the consumers too. The Animal Production Department calculated the cost of producing an egg during three committee meetings and submitted a report to the Cabinet as well as to the committee appointed by the President. It is mentioned in writing in that report that it costs Rs.34 to produce an egg.
When asked to prepare a price index while the price was Rs. 34, they have now made a price index based on the fact that an egg should contain a certain quantity of nutrition.
He said that the cost had been calculated on the basis that hens should be given a certain quantity of food in order to ensure this specified nutrition is present in an egg.
“So, the cost prepared then had been solely to mislead us. When we imposed a control price another report that would mislead us was submitted. When we tried to import eggs, another report was handed over to the committee. Therefore, we have to consider everything prior to making a decision,” he said.
Lanza added that the Auditor General will be able to check the prices by looking into the report that was given to the Food Security Committee appointed by the President.
“The cost of producing an egg has been determined based on the nutrition content which an egg should contain. This was not what was prepared then. People consumed eggs up to now. Did they consider the nutrition in an egg?”, he queried.
A minority of persons are going around everywhere saying production should be protected but the consumer should be protected as well. No organizations or associations are going anywhere to speak up on behalf of that. The egg market economy is with five persons only. If we make decisions while believing them the same thing that happened to rice will happen. While protecting the producer, we should represent the consumers as well.”
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