Have petrol stock for just 1 day, says Sri Lanka PM

May 16, 2022 18:55

Sri Lanka PM Ranil Wickremesinghe

PM of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremesinghe, in Colombo, talks about the country's economic crisis.

-- At present, the Sri Lankan economy is extremely precarious. Although the former governments budget projected revenue of SLR 2.3 trillion, SLR 1.6 trillion is the realistic projection of this years revenue.

-- We're faced with several grave concerns. To ease queues, we must obtain approximately USD 75 million within next couple of days. At the moment, we only have petrol stocks for a single day. Due to diesel shipment that arrived yesterday, lack of diesel will be resolved to some extent.

-- A quarter of electricity is generated through oil. Therefore, there's a possibility that daily power outages will increase to 15 hours a day. However, we've already obtained money to avert this crisis. We must also immediately obtain USD 20 million to provide gas to consumers.

-- I propose to privatise Sri Lankan Airlines which is incurring extensive losses. The loss for 2020-2021 alone amounts to SLR 45 billion. By 31st March 2021, total loss was at 372 billion. Even if we privatise Sri Lankan Airlines, this is a loss that we must bear

-- We have planned to present a new alternative budget to the development budget proposed for 2022. Intend to present it as a concessionary budget.

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