Malik-Sagala in heated argument

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Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama and Ports and Shipping and Southern Development Minister Sagala Ratnayake are reported to have be embroiled in a heated argument at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting over a plot of land belonging to the Sri Lanka Ports Authority in Trincomalee.

Minister Samarawickrama asked for this land to put up a steel manufacturing plant, but Minister Ratnayake refused to release it.

This led to an argument between the two ministers who are both in the close circle of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. This dispute is said to have taken many ministers including President Maithripala Sirisena by surprise making him remark, ‘There seems to be problems in Temple Trees’.