Colombo, Nov 11: The dollar-starved Sri Lankan government has paid as much as $10 million as demurrage during the last six months for shipments of fuel, a newspaper reported on Friday.
As a result of the foreign exchange crisis, the government is compelled to delay unloading fuel cargos till it finds sufficient US dollars to pay the shipping companies, the Daily Mirror reported. This results in demurrage.
State Minister of Power and Energy D.V. Chanaka confirmed that $10 million demurrage had been paid for the last six months, and the government would work out a modality to avoid it in the future.
The Minister said a Cabinet paper would be submitted seeking approval to implement this modality.
Once this mechanism is in place, we will float tenders from suppliers who are willing to unload fuel to be stored in our facilities before payment. Cargo is consigned to the Ceylon Petroleum Corp but it will remain pledged to the supplier or the shipping company concerned. Once we pay, we will start using it, he said.
Sri Lanka has currently rationalized fuel distribution under a QR code system due to lack of foreign exchange to import stocks sufficiently.
The country imports 120,000 tonnes of diesel and 100,000 tonnes of petrol a month to be distributed under the QR code system.
Asked about foreign credit lines for fuel purchases, he said a lot of requests had been made.
(UNI)
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