CB likely to announce fresh round of moratoria to affected segments

As the government has already announced plans for debt forgiveness to small-scale and household farmers with less than two hectares of farmlands, the Central Bank could also announce another cycle of payment holidays for the affected parties from the current economic crisis. 

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe this week told Parliament that the Central Bank is currently assessing which parties deserve support on their loans, as a result of the ‘Great Sri Lankan Collapse’ caused by a mix of factors, including the pandemic, gross economic mismanagement and executive expediency. 

After the assessment, the Central Bank will soon announce the parties and groups that will be entitled to apply for moratoria. 

The tourism sector is at the forefront of those who expect an extension, as its moratorium ends on June 30. 
Meanwhile, those who engage in the passenger transport sector could also come under new moratorium, as their daily incomes got hammered with the fuel shortage. 

The private bus owners this week announced they would reduce operations by 80 percent, due to the worsening diesel shortage.

Majority of these buses are 
on leases. 
Three-wheeler drivers would also seek some assistance, as they could not provide taxi rides as usual, as more than half of their time is spent in petrol queues. 

Sri Lanka has nearly 1.5 million three-wheelers, as the successive governments failed terribly in creating decent salary paying jobs to the youth and conveniently left the public transportation system to decay while building highways on borrowed moneys, amid massive corruption scandals.  

And now with the worsening shortage in petroleum products and the escalating fuel prices, people are going back to the days where they ferry goods using pack bulls, a mode which can be made popularised around the country to ferry both political masters and state sector employees, who did nothing but ruined the chances this country had.