As a growing economic crisis roiled markets and the electrical regulator urged more than a million government employees to work from home to save fuel, Sri Lankans experienced 10-hour power outages on Wednesday and were warned of longer blackouts on Thursday.
Due to a foreign exchange deficit, the island government has been unable to pay for gasoline imports and is preparing to request aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
‘We requested that the government allow the public sector, which employs approximately 1.3 million people, to work from home for the next two days so that we can better handle the fuel and electricity shortages,’ Janaka Ratnayake, Chairman of the Sri Lankan Public Utilities Commission, told Reuters.
Sri Lanka’s power authority warned in a statement that power outages would be extended to 13 hours on Thursday.
In the midst of the country’s greatest economic crisis in decades, foreign exchange reserves have plummeted by 70% in the last two years, falling to a pitiful $2.31 billion in February, leaving Sri Lanka unable to buy basic necessities such as food and fuel.
The government’s inability to pay $52 million for a 37,000 tonne diesel shipment that was awaiting offloading, according to Ratnayake, contributed to the lengthy power outages on Wednesday.
‘We don’t have any FX to pay,’ he said, predicting additional power outages in the coming days. ‘That’s the truth.’
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