Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage today (27) contradicted the claims made by State Minister Shasheendra Rajapaksa that rejected fertiliser samples provided by China’s Qingdao Seawin Biotech company will be re-test with involvement of a third party on the previous day (26).
However, Aluthgamage, who spoke at a press conference today (27) said that the ship carrying organic fertiliser provided by the Chinese company will not be allowed into Sri Lanka and no testing of samples will take place on this consignment.
We will not pay them either, unless the fertiliser stock meets the required standards, Aluthgamage said.
However, in a bold media statement made with strong words yesterday (26), the Chinese firm said that it strongly requests both Sri Lanka and the companu to entrust the Swiss SGS group’s tore-sampling as soon as possible to test whether the fertilizer samples provided by the company to Sri Lanka are contaminated by Erwinia.
The company blamed Sri Lankan authorities claiming that the ‘unscientific detection method and conclusion’ of NPQ in Sri Lanka regarding fertilizer samples of them obviously do not comply with international animal and plant quarantine convention.
The company earlier had requested to re-test the fertiliser samples from the ship with the involvement of a third party. Following that State Minister Rajapaksa, the Agriculture Ministry Secretary and the Director General of Agriculture met Chinese Ambassador in Sri Lanka.
Rajapaksa later announced that Sri Lanka agreed to re-test the fertilizer sample provided by the company.
