An oil scam?

Friday 26th August, 2022

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) is testing people’s patience. It has found an easy way to recover its losses and keep its highly-paid workers happy instead of frugally managing its resources at least during the current crisis. It passes its losses on to consumers, who are not in any way responsible for them. When it asks the public to stand and deliver, so to speak, they are left with no alternative but to comply. Rising petroleum prices continue to squeeze the people hard.

A massive increase in the kerosene price has sent the poor reeling, again, and the prices of diesel and petrol also remain extremely high. The CPC can no longer claim that it is incurring losses due to subsidies. Fuel is not freely available even at high prices; queues are forming near many filling stations across the country though the CPC insists there are enough fuel stocks; bowser owners complain that fuel supplies are not being replenished systematically.

Besides several factors such as chronic mismanagement, the nonpayment of bills for fuel supplied to state institutions such as the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and SriLankan, widespread waste and rampant corruption have made a tremendous contribution to the aggravation of the CPC’s financial woes. SJB MP and Former Minister of Power and Energy Champika Ranawaka has revealed what could be considered an oil scam.

Ranawaka has, in a letter to President Ranil Wickremesinghe, alleged some irregularities in fuel imports. He says there has been an exponential increase in the petroleum premium during the past few months. Demanding an explanation, he has pointed out that the yields of diesel, petrol and naphtha from Siberian crude are lower than those from other types of crude used by the Sapugaskanda refinery. He has also questioned the CPC’s wisdom of tying the Siberian crude prices which are lower in the international market to the Brent index; this kind of price manipulation benefits a third party enormously, but causes a loss of about Rs. 46 more per litre of fuel to consumers.

It will be interesting to see Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera’s response to Ranawaka’s letter, which has been copied to him as well.Ranawaka has requested President Wickremesinghe to order a high-level probe into the alleged oil scam. The petroleum sector is so corrupt that one wonders whether the first ‘C’ in CPC stands for ‘corrupt’, and nobody must be allowed to line their pockets at the expense of the public. It is hoped that the government will have Ranawaka’s allegation investigated thoroughly, instead of appointing an ad hoc probe committee consisting of some stooges, who will invariably rule out any wrongdoing on the part of the CPC.

One cannot but agree with Ranawaka that the police are not equal to the task of probing the alleged petroleum scam, and the Auditor General and other experts have to be called in. We can only hope that the Opposition will take up this issue, and ensure that the interests of the public will prevail. It must ask for a parliamentary debate thereon, and initiate a public discussion on the alleged fuel racket besides cranking up pressure on the government to get to the bottom of it.

The CPC is Sri Lanka’s Augean stables, the cleaning of which will be half the battle in resolving the fuel crisis. So long as the corrupt are allowed to rule the roost in the petroleum sector, fuel prices will remain unconscionably high because losses of the CPC can be recovered at the expense of the hapless people. The government had better bear in mind that the only way to prevent another wave of public protests is to douse the flames of public resentment, which is welling up. Chances are that CPC will trigger the next popular uprising.