Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) Parliamentarian, Dr. Harsha de Silva requested the Ministry of Finance to reconsider the imposition of value added tax (VAT) on items such as infant food products, fertiliser, diesel and medical equipment citing that fairness in taxation necessary to be prevalent despite Governments’ effort in increasing revenue.
He made these remarks speaking at Parliament yesterday (6) and noted that the SJB has highlighted this matter on previous occasions. “Infant nutritional food such as ‘posha’ has been subjected to VAT. We all know that severe malnutrition prevails among children and imposing VAT on them is unfair,” he pointed out.
According to the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Alleviating the Impact of the Economic Crisis Chairman and Parliamentarian Gamini Waleboda per the recent statistics obtained from United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), 56,000 children in Sri Lanka who are grappling with severe malnutrition.
Speaking to The Daily Morning recently on manufacturing of the Thriposha nutritional supplement for children, Sri Lanka Thriposha Limited Chairman Deepthi Kularathna said: “Thriposha manufacturing has not been halted as it was reported. But we had to stop manufacturing only one variant due to some issues in its aflatoxins level. Recently, we received cabinet approval for the request that we made to manufacture Thriposha according to standards prescribed by international institutions. Accordingly, we will be starting to manufacture the particular Thriposha variant as soon as possible.”
MP de Silva also noted VAT has been imposed on fertiliser and diesel despite they have to be imported anyway for the agriculture sector and that was requested to reconsider.
He also highlighted the fact that imposing tax on medical equipment is not fair since there is a tendency to seek medical services from private hospitals since state hospitals are short of medicine and equipment. Therefore, the purchases are made by patients themselves though the Government says the medical costs are borne by the Government.
The Cabinet Spokesperson, Dr. Bandula Gunawardane, announced that the VAT rate will be raised to 18% with effect from 1 January 2024 following the Cabinet nod.