Saturday 2nd November, 2024

The latest fuel price revision has landed the JVP/NPP government in an unenviable position, with only 12 days to go before the next general election, where the ruling alliance’s stakes are extremely high. Unless the NPP succeeds in obtaining a working majority in Parliament, newly-elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake will run the risk of being reduced to a mere figurehead, to all intents and purposes.

Only the prices of 95 Octane petrol and Super Diesel have been reduced much to the disappointment of the ordinary people, who mostly use 92 Octane petrol and Auto Diesel. The government would not have found itself in this situation but for its much-advertised election pledge to deep-six the fuel pricing formula and slash the prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene. It would have been prudent for the JVP/NPP to leave all fuel prices unrevised at this juncture.

Cabinet Spokesman and Minister Vijitha Herath has claimed that the so-called pricing formula is not the sole basis on which fuel prices are revised monthly. If so, why hasn’t the government reduced the prices of the widely used fuel types? The fuel price revision at issue may make economic sense because the cost reflective pricing helps reduce state expenditure, but it has come at a political cost to the NPP, which raised the people’s expectations by offering to reduce taxes on fuel, eliminate corruption in the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and slash the prices of petrol and diesel immediately after capturing power. Its rhetoric led most people to believe that diesel and petrol would be available again at the pre-crisis prices.

Three-wheeler drivers, who use 92 Octane petrol, are the most vociferous critics of how the government is handling fuel prices. It was not out of altruism that the trishaw fraternity campaigned hard for JVP/NPP leader Dissanayake in the presidential race. They obviously expected economic benefits in return under an NPP government.

President Dissanayake never misses an opportunity to declare that he cannot perform miracles. But he made himself out to be a miracle man when he was an Opposition MP. He would wax eloquent in Parliament, telling successive governments how to slash taxes and tariffs, grant relief to the public and lower the cost of living. Therefore, it is only natural that the people expect miracles under his presidency. The JVP-led trade unions staged protests and even strikes, demanding pay hikes, and the JVP/NPP sought to rubbish the then rulers’ claim that salary increases could be granted only through the annual Budgets. The JVP/NPP has now made an about-turn; it says it will consider the state sector pay hikes when the next Budget is presented.

It is not being argued that the NPP government should reduce fuel prices and increase the public sector salaries haphazardly at the expense of the economy. The Opposition should refrain from trying to recover lost ground by pressuring the government to do things that would hurt the economy. The government is right in adhering to the cost-reflective fuel pricing and insisting that pay hikes cannot be granted at this juncture. Even if Ranil Wickremesinghe had won the September presidential election, he would not have been able to do what he is now asking the NPP government to do.

The JVP/NPP leaders must be regretting the many promises they made to win the presidential election. The biggest challenge before the government, which has come to terms with the sobering economic reality, is to make the public, whose expectations it elevated beyond measure, to do likewise and exercise patience. Unfortunately for the JVP/NPP, patience is not a virtue associated with Sri Lankans, who want election promises to be fulfilled the way hoppers are baked.