SUNDAY PUNCH 2
The Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne came out storming from his anti cigarette corner in the cabinet ring to spar with his colleague Mangala Samaraweera this Monday and to deliver him a knockout blow over his decision to allow Chinese cigarettes to invade the local market, merely because a few thousand Chinese working in Lanka couldn’t do without their daily puff of Chinese smoke.
After all he had won his anti fags boxing colours at every World Health Organisation Summit not for nothing but for appearing to be the great defender of the anti smoking faith. And to learn that in his absence from Lanka attending the World No Tobacco Day in Geneva on 31st May receiving rounds of applause and accolade after accolade for his holy crusade against the vice of smoking, he had been upstaged the very same day he was flaunting his achievements on a world stage before the WHO body that the Finance Minister had announced his intention to proliferate smoking in Lanka by opening the floodgates to Chinese cigarettes would have certainly got him the goat.
This Monday, the Health Minister took his gloves off to deliver punch after punch to the Government’s Finance Minister in what you certainly can call a home and home no holds barred brawl.
Addressing the World No Tobacco Day, organised by the National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol ( NATA) held at Waters Edge, Minister Senaratne said:
“There are only 6,000 Chinese workers in Sri Lanka at the moment and there are around 10,000 Indian workers in the country. What will happen if the Indian workers too demand that they need to smoke their own country brands? In addition there are Russian and many other nationalities working here. If we permit the Chinese brands then others too will demand their brands. It will lead to chaos.
His ire is understandable. At the WHO summit, he had just been appointed as the as the First Vice President giving priority to the Asia Pacific Region coming under his purview. He was first appointed to the same position in 2017 mainly because he was seen as an ardent advocate of the anti smoking lobby whose wish and determination was to reduce the Lankan tobacco industry to ashes.
Now here was the Finance Minister at home in Colombo opening the door to China to send their nicotine sticks to Lanka so that the nation could have a variety of choice. It was almost as if Mangala had pulled the rug under his feet and brought Rajitha’s crown of stubbed cigarette butts tumbling down.
And what was it that sparked the Health Minister’s anger this week?
The announcement Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera made in Colombo on World No Tobacco Day that he intends to open the sluice gates to foreign cigarette imports hitherto dammed. Merely because the Chinese envoy requested him to do so,
Minister Samaraweera held a press conference on 30th of May and declared: “The Chinese embassy earlier informed me that these Chinese expats consume cigarettes in large quantities and they only smoke cigarettes originating from China and not the locally manufactured cigarettes. There is a significant demand for foreign cigarettes among the expatriate community in Colombo, particularly from Chinese nationals who largely depend on ciga