… USD 5 mn paid to Iran a month By Shamindra Ferdinando Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera has confirmed that consumers of petrol and diesel have been made to pay Rs. 50 to Rs. 55 per litre since the middle of last year to settle what the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) owed its creditors. […]

ECONOMYNEXT –Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe urged the public to become informants to broaden the tax net and thus reduce both overall direct and indirect taxes. The government has raised Value Added Tax (VAT), an indirect tax to 18 percent from 15 percent with effect from January 1. The move also will see some VAT […]

Monday 27th November, 2023 The SJB has commenced collecting signatures for a public petition as part of a campaign to have those who are responsible for the current economic crisis stripped of their civic rights. Given public resentment, which is palpable, the SJB may be able to obtain hundreds of thousands of signatures for its […]

Monday 4th September, 2023 Sri Lankans with a predilection for gratuitous violence or wanton brutality no longer have to spend money to watch western gangster movies. Local television news bulletins are full of actual scenes of violence; they are in fact scarier than taut Hollywood thrillers such as Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. Sicarios of local gangsters […]

By C. A. Chandraprema We now live in a digital world dominated by the social media, where information or disinformation coming through our mobile phones has more to do with forming public opinion than the plainly visible and palpable reality and well-established facts and data. Sri Lanka recently marked the 75th Anniversary of its Independence in […]

Thursday 9th February, 2023 President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who presented his government’s policy statement in Parliament, yesterday, sounded like a seasoned insurance sales agent with glib phrases rolling off his experienced tongue; he sought to scare the public and infuse them with hope, at the same time, to sell his policies. The knee-jerk reaction of the […]

BASL says ‘it is a matter entirely for the House’ By Shamindra Ferdinando Prof. Prathiba Mahanamahewa of the Colombo University Law Faculty, yesterday, lambasted the double standards in dealing with lawmakers over contempt of court, which, too, tended to erode public confidence in the parliamentary system. The Attorney-at-Law said so referring to the sentencing of Gampaha District […]

"You can’t even run the plant using that crude oil. The only option left for the importers is to drink it," he said.

Minister Kanchana Wijesekera has publicly stated that the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) have employees far in excess than required for the normal functioning of these institutions. For instance, Ceylon Petroleum Storage Terminals Ltd., has 4,200 employees where only 500 are required, and the CEB has around 26,000 employees when […]

Wednesday 31st August, 2022 Trade unions in the power and energy sectors are up in arms against a government move to restructure the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC). They would have the public believe that the blame for the staggering losses the two institutions have been incurring should be laid […]

We run on this page today an article written by a retired Major General of the Sri Lanka Army who argues forcefully that the Aragalaya protesters were NOT repeat NOT peaceful. Over the weeks and months of the protest, which now appears to be fizzling out, although contrary claims that it will continue persist, the […]

Miranda said long distance buses will be given around 125-150 litres of diesel at a time.

Friday 5th August 2022 Sri Lanka’s struggle to shore up its crumbling economy continues, and there are no signs of promised foreign assistance materialising anytime soon. The Cabinet has just retained the services of some foreign firms for external debt restructuring, which is one of the main conditions for the IMF bailout package. When the […]