Inflation, Shortage & Corruption: Sri Lanka Resorts to Firewood for Cooking as Fuel and Gas Becomes Luxury

Amid the ongoing economic crisis in Sri Lanka, the island nation is running short of fuel, cooking gas and other essential commodities. The country’s main cooking gas retailer Litro Gas said it has completely run out of stock, but hoped to get new supplies in coming days to resume distribution.

People are forced to spend time in long queues for fuel while most essentials, including medicine, are in short supply. Massive anti-government protests are being held throughout the country with a major demonstration happening outside the Rajapaksa secretariat in central Colombo.

Short of essentials, people are resorting to primitive means to run their households. Amid a crippling shortage of cooking gas, people in the island nation have had to resort to firewood to keep their kitchens running.

The island nation of Sri Lanka is in the midst of one of the worst economic crises it’s ever seen. It has just defaulted on its foreign debts for the first time since its independence, and the country’s 22 million people are facing crippling 12-hour power cuts, and an extreme scarcity of food, fuel and other essential items such as medicines.

Inflation is at an all-time high of 17.5%, with prices of food items such as a kilogram of rice soaring to 500 Sri Lankan rupees (A$2.10) when it would normally cost around 80 rupees (A$0.34). Amid shortages, one 400g packet of milk powder is reported to cost over 250 rupees (A$1.05), when it usually costs around 60 rupees (A$0.25).

According to Theshara Jayasinghe, who recently resigned as the Chairman and CEO of Litro Gas, there is massive corruption in the gas business. Cooking gas shortage is just one of the scarcities that the public had to face in the island nation’s worst economic crisis since independence.

The country is facing shortage of foreign currency, food, essentials, fuel, electricity among other things.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka on Friday started a process to import cooking gas through a credit line arrangement with India, Theshara Jayasinghe said. Jayasinghe said that he had initiated a process through the Indian High Commission to obtain an Indian credit line to import gas.

Sri Lanka’s economic meltdown began after the coronavirus pandemic torpedoed vital revenue from tourism and remittances.

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