COLOMBO: A special meeting to gather different views in order to prepare a new Customs Ordinance as proposed by the budget 2016 was held with the patronage of Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake Thursday (July 28) at the Ministry of Finance. Representatives of Customs Trade Unions, Civil Activists Organizations and Sri Lanka Bar Association participated in the meeting.
A proposal was made to introduce a new Customs Draft Bill with the anticipation of modernizing the Customs as the country needs not to return to Stone Age, addressing the participants, Minister Karunanayake said. He said that the intention of the government by introducing the new Customs Ordinance is to increase Customs revenue thereby reducing the people’s tax burden.
The views obtained for the preparation of the new Customs Draft Bill will be put forward to the representatives of the trade unions and civil society organizations within the next two weeks. The meeting was concluded after the participants agreed to hold another round of talks thereafter.
Expressing his views to the media at the conclusion of the meeting, Minister Karunanayake said the meeting was held at the request of Customs Officers, Sri Lanka Bar Association and Civil Society Organizations.
He said the views were exchanged during the discussion that the proposed Customs Ordinance should be prepared with full transparency as certain factions are charging that the proposed Customs Ordinance is introduced to protect racketeers.
“We are get ready to build the Customs income through this modernization procedure so as to decrease load on citizens. Our goal is to walk towards modernization and not come back to Stone Age. We are going to acquaint the new Customs Ordinance with keep the reiteration of defilement that had been submitted amid a time of about recent years. We anticipate that exceptionally will deny open door for mobsters by this new statute. Certain groups of mobsters who have as of now got terrified of losing open doors are spreading bits of gossip. On one hand, they say that they have not got the proposed Draft Bill and then again, they say the intention of the new draft bill is to shorten the forces of the Customs. There could be no truth in both these claims.
The total revenue of the Customs has increased to 800 billion rupees today from the total income of 300 billion rupees in the past, the Minister said attributing the increase of revenue to a clean government.
“We believe that the current revenue of the Customs could be increased further after the new Customs Ordinance is introduced,” the Minister said.
Finance Ministry Secretary Dr. R.H.S. Samaratunga and, Venerable Thiniyawala Palitha Thera, Professor Sarath Wijesuriya, Saman Ratnapriya, Attorney-at-law J.C. Weliamuna, Customs Director General Chulananda Perera and several others participated in the discussion.
