Sri Lanka to operate one-third of private buses from June 06

ECONOMYNEXT – Only one-third of Sri Lanka’s privately owned buses will operate from Monday, June 06 due to diesel shortage, Lanka Private Bus Owners’ Association President Gemunu Wijeratne said.

Rationed diesel given to bus owners is not enough to continue normal operations and drivers also have to wait for many hours in queues.

“Until the fuel issue is solved, only a fraction of buses can operate,” Wijeratne told EconomyNext

“The drivers and conductors will work on rotation so their livelihoods will not get impacted.”

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday, June 03, said the government has planned to maintain the supply of fuel for three-wheelers.

The costs of fuel and transport and the difficulty of finding transport is forcing some Sri Lankans to stay at home instead of going to work or school, reducing economic activities.

Sri Lanka is facing foreign exchange shortages due to money printing by the central bank which is continuing to intervene in forex markets following a botched float which saw the rupee collapsed from 200 to 365 from March to May 2022.

Though rates have been hiked to smash the economy and reduce forex outflows, money printing is continuing at higher rates.

Sri Lanka is now in the midst of the worst currency crisis and the first default triggered by the country’s Latin America style central bank in its 72-year history. Sri Lanka’s central bank has the worst record for monetary instability in South Asia after Pakistan. (Colombo/June05/2022)