The Government of Sri Lanka has responded to a story by the Al Jazeera media network titled “Sri Lanka declares food emergency as forex crisis worsens”.
Accordingly, Al Jazeera reports the following, “Sri Lanka has declared a state of emergency over food shortages as private banks run out of foreign exchange to finance imports. With the country suffering a hard-hitting economic crisis, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Tuesday said he has ordered emergency regulations to counter the hoarding of sugar, rice and other essential foods.”
To which the Department of Government Information states that while invoking emergency regulations to counter hoarding is true, saying that there is no money to finance imports is not true.
“Imports have increased by over 10% YOY this year and in the case of certain food items (particularly sugar) there has been high excessive imports whereby inventories have been accumulated which are sufficient for over an year, on the speculation that the LKR would depreciate and a massive profit could be made. After building up such stocks certain unscrupulous trade have created an artificial shortage so that they could fleece consumers and profit. By these regulations, the government has dealt with the situation,”
Al Jazeera also states claims that such regulations give wide powers to officials to seize food stocks held by traders, arrest people who hoard essential food and for the government to fix controlled price.
The Government has responded to this by saying that these are existing regulations which had been framed in the past in order to deal with such situations.
SL responds to Al Jazeera story on “food emergency”
05 Sep 2021
SL responds to Al Jazeera story on “food emergency”
05 Sep 2021