Saudi Arabia’s coir pith order cancellation incurs massive loss for Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has lost a long term contract offered by Saudi Arabia to supply a large quantity of coco peat (sterilised coir) worth millions of dollars due to official bungling and corruption, an official probe revealed.
The other reason for the cancellation of the order was the lack of vision and proper procedure of state authorities to facilitate the official process of supplying the required stock of sterilised coir.
Furthermore the Atomic Energy Board (AEB) has been directed to provide sterilisation facilities to sterilise coir but it was to no avail due to official mishandling of the supply procedure.
Coco Peat is the non-fibrous, spongy, light weight, corky material that holds together the coir fibre in coconut husk for horticultural use. It is also known as Coco Coir in the US and Coir Pith in West Asia.
Saudi Arabia has expressed interest to import this coir pith as plant material from Sri Lanka for a 10 billion tree planting programme launched by its Government, the report of the Parliamentary Sectoral Supervisory Committee for Energy and Transport underlined.
These trees were to be planted in urban and semi-urban areas of this West Asian country to bring down the temperature as it is predicted to rise faster than the global average in the coming decades.
Saudi has placed the order for the procurement of 20,000 container load of coco peat from Sri Lanka as a plant material at the initial stages of tree planting campaign, several officials disclosed to the committee.
Now Sri Lanka has to forgo a massive sum of US$130.16 million in much needed foreign exchange as a result of the cancellation of the coir pith order by the Saudi government, Finance Ministry officials observed.
The Saudi Arabian government has complained to Sri Lankan authorities that a high-ranking official of the Coconut Development Authority tried to exert undue influence on a team of Saudi state officials who visited the island to inspect the process of producing coco peat.