Officers of the Consumer Affairs Authority raided several traders in the Pettah, Gampaha and Negombo areas last week and prosecuted 61 of them in Courts, Minister of Trade, Commerce Consumer Affairs and Marketing and Cooperatives Bandula Gunawardhana told ‘The Island’ yesterday (27).

Legal action was taken against those traders for selling rice above the controlled price and for not displaying the prices of their goods outside shops as required by the law.

He had instructed CAA officers across the country to take action against traders who sell rice above the controlled price. The maximum retail price of samba rice was 70 rupees a kilogram.

An import duty of 20 rupees per kilogram of big onions and potatoes was imposed to protect the local farmers as onion and the potato crops were being harvested currently, he said.

CAA Chairman Rumy Marzook said during the last month 249 raids were conducted on errant traders and 225 of them were prosecuted and fines totaling 767,000 rupees were imposed on them. Over 7.9 million rupees in fines was levied during the first seven months of the current year on traders who flouted the law.