Colombo: Cash-strapped Sri Lanka on Sunday extended school closures for one week because there isn’t enough fuel for teachers and parents to get children to classrooms.

The energy minister appealed to the country’s expatriates to send money home through banks to finance new oil purchases.

An autorickshaw driver waits in a queue hoping to get fuel in Colombo.Credit:AP

A huge foreign debt has left the Indian Ocean island without suppliers willing to sell fuel on credit. The available stocks, sufficient for only several days, will be provided for essential services, including health and port workers, public transport and food distribution, officials said.

“Finding money is a challenge. It’s a huge challenge,” Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera told reporters.

He said the government has ordered new fuel stocks and the first ship with 40,000 metric tons of diesel is expected to arrive on Friday, while the first ship carrying gasoline would come on July 22.

Several other fuel shipments are in the pipeline, but he said authorities are struggling to find the money needed to pay for the fuel. Wijesekera said that Sri Lanka owed about $US800 million ($1.7 billion) to seven fuel suppliers.

There is little money to be spent at this vegetable market in Colombo.Credit:Bloomberg/Buddhika Weerasinghe

Last month, schools were closed nationwide for a day due to fuel shortages and had remained closed for the last two weeks in urban areas. Schools will remain shut until Friday.

Authorities also announced countrywide power cuts of up to three hours a day from Monday because they can’t supply enough fuel to power generating stations. Sweeping power cuts have been a blight on Sri Lanka’s economy for months, along with severe shortages of essentials including cooking gas, medicine and food imports.

Wijesekera said the main problem is the lack of dollars and appealed to some two million Sri Lankans working abroad to send their foreign exchange earnings home through banks instead of informal channels.

He said workers’ remittances, which usually stood at $US600 million per month, had declined to $US318 million in June.

According to the Central Bank, the remittances – the nation’s main foreign exchange earner – dropped from $US2.8 billion in the first six months of 2021 to $US1.3 billion in the same period this year for a decline of 53 per cent.

The drop came after the government last year ordered the mandatory conversion of foreign currency. It said that black-market premiums have led people to hoard foreign currency.

Sri Lanka has been getting most of its fuel needs from neighbouring India, which provided it with a credit line. The government said it was also negotiating with suppliers in Russia and Malaysia.

The economic meltdown has triggered a political crisis with widespread anti-government protests across the country.

In the capital, Colombo, protesters have been occupying the entrance to the president’s office for more than two months to demand President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation.

They accuse him and his powerful family of plunging the country into the crisis through corruption and misrule.

AP

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