Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM Lower Hutt NZ’

Minister Udaya Gammanpila has to be roundly congratulated and thanked  for promptly accessing media to explain the truth to the world and demolish the well organised &  well funded propagation of misrerepresentations, deliberate lies and myths when ever they arise. This is a desperate requirement in SL where baseless Rumour and Myth rules the roost where the truth is often relegated to the bottom of a heap of these lies, a consequence of this organised and well funded misuse of the democratic freedom of speech, which was meant to be exercised with responsibility and not deliberately and wrongly exploited as in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan’s should rise up big time against this  deliberate misuse and wrong exploitation of the sacred democratic freedom of speech.

On the Big Focus program on Derana TV on 19/11/21 Minister Gammanpila was at his brilliant best demolishing the claims made in Parliament, by one who had been challenged by his own cabinet colleagues to show some of his educational credentials . This member based his claims  on  a deliberately misleading analysis of the government’s  handling of the current challenges on acquisition of it’s fuel requirements by one known at school as  Pacha Upali” . The minister explained that as the govt was often obtaining fuel on credit for several months at a time , they would need to source petroleum products from those prepared to do this and not necessarily from the lowest spot price that would require prompt payment. . This is not possible on account of the destroyers economy left by Yahapalana now compounded by Covid. Not buying the  cheapest was suggested in parliament by the Pacha Upali” mislead member as fraudulent.! The real reason for this is as above.

The Minister also explained why they chose to close Sapugaskanda refinery for 50 days, a planned closure already announced in September during which time it’s service needs would be addressed,  .Imported refined products accounts for 70% of Sri Lanka’s requirements , while the old technology based Iran manufactured Sapugaskanda only provided 30% of the oil requirement. Most of this was the type used for firing oil powered electricity generation, which has a low need now with overflowing hydroelectricity reservoirs and completely full storage capacity for these petroleum products.Hence the planned closure.

This is the response to the triumphant question raised by the member with questionable educational credentials, of how the govt had money to buy refined oil and not crude”. This was based on the current requirement.

The current need was to maintain the requirement of the importation of the 70% refined oil, of which there was their current usual back up fo  10-15days, as has been the practice for years.base on SL’s low levels Forex availability  These reserves have not been challenged at all in the past years and the plans to maintain this level for the foreseeable future are well established and no cause for concern at all. As we write several ships with refined oil are in the  Colombo Harbour.

Against this back ground , despite government’s repeated reassurances of no shortage of fuel, panic buying was created by these deliberately misleading  mischievous claims of fuel shortage, orchestrated by media , some deliberately, some in their ignorance , that led to the shortages at the pumps where their usual stores for   3 days was exhausted in a day through panic buying  and replenishing the stocks at the pump takes a few days . Despite the Minister reassuring the public, the false and misleading alternative was so pervasive , leading to the above results..

Thank you again Minister  and congratulations  for your brilliant work, keep doing the same, encourage more of your colleagues to do the same & please don’t fail to deliver on your promise of making commercially available , the first gushes of Natural Gas from the Mannar Basin within 3 years.