A country that was supposed to be winning the peace after a decades-long civil war has been plunged into confusion and chaos as people have to queue for sometime days to get fuel for their vehicles and even gas to cook with. Oh, and this probably has nothing to do with Putin or Biden.
A stark warning has been issued by the Minister of Energy for Sri Lanka. Kanchana Wijesekera announced yesterday that the country has only enough fuel for the next 24 hours. In the same announcement, he added that the next shipment of petrol was not expected for at least two weeks.
Sri Lanka has been suffering its worst economic crisis since independence largely due to rampant bribery and corruption in the island nation of 22 million people. The situation became so bad that last week, the sale of petrol was suspended for non-essential vehicles due to a lack of foreign currency to pay for any import.
It was estimated that the country had less than 13,000 tonnes of diesel and just over 4,000 tonnes of petrol remaining in its reserves, with the next shipment only due to arrive on the 23rd of July, and even that may remain unpaid as the central bank only has USD125 million in its reserves and the shipment will cost USD587 million. Worse still, the energy ministry admitted that there was still the small matter of an unpaid USD800 million it owed some suppliers for an earlier shipment.
Gas stations guarded by the army.
The government has also called on overseas Sri Lankans to send money back urgently as the amount of remittance has dropped, which was largely due to a government mandate for compulsory conversion of foreign currency accounts to Rupees at a rate controlled by the government. The crisis is putting untold strain on the economy. Taxi drivers ‘camping’ outside a gas station for two days and rows of the ubiquitous tuk-tuk waiting to fill up have now become a common sight.
Three-line queue for petrol.
Tourism has always been one of the key sources of income for Sri Lanka and of course with all of the travel restriction around COVID, the country was hit particularly hard. But the big question now is, if you can get there, would you be able to travel around the country to see the tourist sites. And assuming you could, will there be any jet fuel to put into the plane to carry you home?
Cooking gas is in short supply as well.
