Sri Lanka’s Energy Minister, Udaya Gammanpila, has denied that the country was facing a fuel crisis as panic buying of petrol surged in Sri Lanka and as he encouraged motorists to use fuel sparingly.

NO FUEL SHORTAGE.

I have repeatedly stated that if there was a fuel shortage, I would have told the nation before anybody else. I have always been truthful to the people and informed in advance about the price hike. The first to announce about the foreign currency crisis.

— Udaya Gammanpila (@UPGammanpila) August 20, 2021

The statement came as the Energy Ministry announced that it only had diesel stocks for 11 days and petrol for 10 days. In response, there were long queues seen at filling stations in Colombo and other cities and citizens prepared for the worst.

The Minister instead claimed that the country was facing a “foreign currency crisis” and encouraged people to “use fuel economically to save foreign currency for much-needed medicine & vaccines.” Gammanpila has further explained that the government has been unable to hold large buffer stocks of fuel as the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation was unable to source the dollars needed to finance it.

Responding to the situation, the President’s Secretary, P. B. Jayasundara, announced earlier this month that the country should reduce petroleum consumption and move towards renewable energy so to avoid fuel rationing by the end of this year.

 The government has responded by printing money to keep rates down and to fund state workers however this has led to issues of inflation and rises in food prices. In the past month, consumer price-based inflation rose 5.7% compared with June's 5.2%. At the same time, the country’s currency has depreciated 8% this year.

On Thursday the government increased the rate at which overnight money was printed from 5.50 % to 6%.

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