Fish harvesting, processing, and trade are dominated by the private sector making the entity a white elephant burdening the Treasury as its operations were already on a downward trend, recent findings of the Treasury, before the 2024 budgetary allocations, revealed.

The private sector purchased, distributed, and retailed 99 per cent of all fish landed in Sri Lanka and produced by aquaculture and 98 per cent of coastal fish production and therefore the CFC cannot sustain under its present poor performance, it observed.

According to the most recent data on CFC purchases, the corporation purchased only 3,771 Metric tonnes (MT) (out of a total marine production of 449,440 MT), of which 82 per cent was bought either directly from landing centres or through Colombo’s wholesale market