COLOMBO — Cash-strapped
Sri Lanka on Sunday
announced sending ministers to Russia and Qatar to try and secure cheap oil a
day after the government said it had all but run out of fuel.
اضافة اعلان
The government meanwhile extended a two-week
closure of non-essential state institutions until further notice in order to
save fuel, maintaining only a skeleton staff to provide minimum services.
Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera said two
ministers will travel to Russia on Monday to discuss getting more oil following
last month’s purchase of 90,000 tonnes of Siberian crude.
That shipment was arranged through Coral
Energy, a Dubai-based intermediary, but politicians have been urging the
authorities to negotiate directly with President Vladimir Putin’s government.
“Two ministers are going to
Russia and I will
go to Qatar tomorrow to see if we can arrange concessionary terms,” Wijesekera
told reporters in Colombo.
Wijesekera had announced on Saturday that Sri
Lanka was virtually out of petrol and diesel after several scheduled shipments
were delayed indefinitely due to “banking” reasons.
Fuel reserves were sufficient to meet less
than two days’ demand and it was being reserved for essential services,
Wijesekera said while apologizing for the situation.
The state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation on
Sunday hiked the price for diesel by 15 percent to 460 rupees ($1.27) a liter
and petrol by 22 percent to 550 rupees.
Since the beginning of the year, diesel
prices have gone up nearly four-fold and gasoline has almost tripled.
Wijesekera said there would be an indefinite
delay in getting new shipments of oil and urged motorists not to queue up until
he introduces a token system to a limited number of vehicles daily.
US
takes stock
A
delegation from the
US Treasury and the State Department meanwhile arrived to
“explore the most effective ways for the US to support Sri Lankans in need”,
the US embassy in Colombo said.
“As Sri Lankans endure some of the greatest
economic challenges in their history, our efforts to support economic growth
and strengthen democratic institutions have never been more critical,” US
ambassador Julie Chung said in a statement.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Treasury for
Asia Robert Kaproth and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and
Central Asia Kelly Keiderling were in the delegation.
The embassy said it had committed $158.75
million in new financing in the past two weeks to help Sri Lankans.
About 1.7 million residents need “life-saving
assistance”, according to the United Nations which issued a flash appeal last
week.
Four out of five people in the nation of 22
million have reduced their food intake due to severe shortages and galloping
prices, the UN noted.
Prime Minister
Ranil Wickremesinghe warned
parliament on Wednesday that more hardships were on the way.
“Our economy has faced a complete collapse,”
Wickremesinghe said. “We are now facing a far more serious situation beyond the
mere shortages of fuel, gas, electricity, and food.”
Unable to repay its $51 billion foreign debt,
the government declared it was defaulting in April and is negotiating with the
International Monetary Fund for a possible bailout.
Sri Lanka’s official inflation at the end of May was 45.3
percent, according to official data, but private economists have placed it at
128 percent, the second-highest in the world after
Zimbabwe.
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