Empty treasury, power cuts, fuel shortages and nonsense - EDITORIAL

It’s out in the open, government has literally admitted, it faces a major foreign exchange crisis. Government is today running on a shoe-string budget. The country is running out of options regarding imports of basics which the country depends on like fuel, our staple food rice and medicines.  

A majority of our citizens today live below the poverty line (below US$ 3 per day). The government of our country like these unfortunate folk is living from one day to the next. It is waiting for bailouts from India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan or from goodness knows where, which will provide the country with a life-line for tomorrow.  
We the citizens can understand that the pandemic, its effect on the tourist trade and on migrant wages which brought the largest share of foreign exchange/currency was largely responsible for our present day economic woes.  

We realize this is why government is now facing a major foreign exchange crisis.  
 We also have many contradictory comments and statements by ministers, deputy ministers and the heads of agencies under their command regarding the availability of essentials like power -electricity as well as a means of overcome problems with the repayment of international loans.  
The governor of the Central Bank has ruled out approaching the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help regarding rescheduling international debt .repayments. 

However the Minister of Finance has emphasized that all options are on the table and on February 21, the media quoted Minister Gammanpila saying most ministers favoured a deal with the IMF!  
Then out of the blues on February 21, the Governor of the Central Bank who enjoys cabinet status informed ‘Bloomberg’ that the Central Bank is confident of braving the foreign exchange storm via cash swaps from Bangladesh, India and China, and would like to see more of the same.  

Separately, on February 16, all Lankans heartens were gladdened and one and all literally speaking, bent a knee to the generous donation from India of 40,000 metric tonnes of fuel which would help the electricity board keep generation power as our power stations were slowly but surely closing down due to a shortage.of fuel needed to power the electricity board’s generators.  

Two days later on February 18 to be exact, we have the electricity board informing the public via the media that it would be unable to guarantee an uninterrupted supply of power and the minister responsible for the subject calling for power cuts and on February 22, our sister paper ‘Lankadeepa’ reported the Ministry of Power informing the public that only limited quantities of fuel would be supplied to (petrol) sheds.  

Hilarious? Wait, the best is yet to come!  
On February 22, the state-controlled ‘Dinamina’ announced .the loss-making petroleum corporation spent Rs. 550 million daily on overtime payment to its workers and 1,500 million as bonus to its employees! LoL and behold! Normally bonus is paid to employees based on the profits made by a company.  

In the next few days, our Foreign Minister, a bevy of his advisors and perhaps members of the Press Corps will take wing to Geneva where the UN Resolution on Sri Lanka is being taken up. With the ‘Sword of Damocles’ so-to-say hanging over our heads,on charges of violating Human Rights, War Crimes the country was shocked to learn of a questionable manner on how a social activist demanding justice for the ‘Easter Sunday’ bombings was arrested! The activist had the presence of mind to live stream what was taking place. T hese and similar nonsensical deeds that have brought this country to its knees.  
The worst is that some people are keeping even the rulers of this country in the dark on what’s happening.