Authorities in Sri Lanka are imposing rolling power cuts across the nation as its deepening financial crisis leads to shortages of fuel and handicaps its power grid.
The Sri Lankan Public Utilities Commission said that it would shut off the country’s grid for four-and-a-half hours yesterday after two-hour power cuts on Tuesday and Monday.
Electricity is to be switched off on a rotating basis between regions between 8:30am and 10:30pm, officials said.
Photo: Reuters
The regulatory body said that the state-owned Ceylon Electricity Board had requested permission to implement the cuts as fuel shortages had caused the loss of about 700 megawatts to the national grid.
Over the past few weeks, Sri Lankans have experienced several sporadic power failures.
The “shortage of fuel is causing this issue,” commission Chairman Janaka Ratnayake said.
Photo: AP
“We are having a fuel crisis not an electricity crisis,” he added.
Depleted foreign reserves are driving Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis in decades. A currency crunch has hindered imports of fuel and other essentials from overseas, including milk powder, cooking gas and gasoline.
In the past few days, many Sri Lankans have been forced to wait in long lines in the capital, Colombo, and its suburbs to obtain fuel for their scooters and vehicles.
Some fuel stations have remained closed, as they have not received new supplies.
The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to Sri Lanka’s economy, which heavily depends on tourism and trade, with the government estimating a loss of US$14 billion in the past two years.
The economy is estimated to have contracted by 1.5 percent in the third quarter of last year, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka said.
Inflation surged to 12.1 percent in December last year, it said.
Sri Lanka has borrowed heavily and faces repayments on US$12.5 billion in international sovereign bonds.
The government is gradually building back reserves to ensure it can honor its debts, officials said.
The government settled US$500 million due on sovereign bonds last month and the gross official reserves stood at US$2.36 billion at the end of the month, the central bank said.
Sri Lanka’s foreign debt obligations for this year exceed US$7 billion, including the latest payment and the repayment of another US$1 billion bond in July.
The electricity crisis has been worsened by plunging water levels powering hydroelectric dams in the country.
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