Sri Lanka It's Happening

April 17, 2006

In this land of lotus eaters we were happily nibbling on our Kavum and kokis, when the government announces out of the blue a huge increase in the price of fuel.

A few years ago, the policy was to adjust the price of petrol, diesel and kerosene according to the world market prices. That meant every month the prices went up by a couple of rupees, there were grumbles but there were no shocks.

The present regime and the previous regime (two different dictators, same party) are great lovers of subsidies. They firmly believe that their duty is to empty the treasury as fast as possible. Part of that policy is to ignore the changing prices of crude oil in the markets. So we have not had a fuel price hike in many months.

The government's new year present to the people was to announce the single biggest price hike on petrolium products in recent years. The supposedly pro poor government has increased the prices of Kerosene by more than 25%. Kerosene is the poor mans fuel, used for cooking and for lighting.

With the agriculture based economy of the present regime, poor farmers are stuggling to sell their rice crops. A few of them have resorted to dousing themselves with kerosene and setting themselves on fire as the only solution. Now any poor farmer wanting to commit suicide will have to drink insecticide instead. Drinking insecticide is in fact the most popular method in Sri Lanka.

Posted by raditha at April 17, 2006 5:48 AM