Saturday 21st March, 2026

Trouble is said to come in threes. For Sri Lankans, it seems to come in multiples of three. Close on the heels of crippling fuel price hikes, speculation is rife that electricity tariff increases are on the cards. The government is said to be contemplating another round of fuel price hikes as well.

The JVP/NPP talked the talk in the run-up to the 2024 elections, but it is now unable to walk the walk. In fact, the sobering economic reality has compelled it to do the very antithesis of what it promised during its Opposition days. It made a solemn pledge to bring down the cost of living immediately after forming a government and even tackle the country’s debt crisis expeditiously, without aggravating the people’s lot. There seems to be no end in sight to its about-turns, which are legion.

There is reason to believe that many people voted for the JVP/NPP, expecting it to fulfil its promise to lower taxes and tariffs among other things. Now that the government has reneged on that pledge and increased taxes and electricity and fuel prices substantially, they must be feeling that they were taken for a ride. Winning elections by making all the promises in the world is one thing, but fulfilling them to live up to the people’s expectations is quite another. There was no way the NPP government could slash taxes and tariffs, given the perilous state of the economy and the IMF bailout conditions, which are aimed at increasing state revenue severalfold and bring about debt sustainability. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government blundered by slashing taxes and fuel prices. Interim President Ranil Wickremesinghe had to rectify those colossal policy blunders that ruined the economy. However, the public naturally becomes livid when governments do not make good on their promises and they are left without the promised relief and benefits.

The Opposition has said President Anura Kumara Dissanayake yesterday made a case for another round of fuel price hikes while addressing Parliament. A spokesman for fuel distributors has gone on record as saying that more fuel prices are in the pipeline. Such statements only cause panic among consumers and drive filling stations operators to hide their stocks with a view to profiteering. Yesterday, many of them claimed they had run out of fuel. There is no one the public can turn to. Unsurprisingly, when many filling stations claim to have no fuel, queues of vehicles near the others where stocks are available grow longer. It behoves the President, other government politicians and fuel distributors to refrain from predicting fuel prices hikes. It is also a mistake for them to predict price reductions, for the filling station owners do not place orders until the fuel prices are lowered. What the politicians and others should do is to guard their tongues and allow fuel prices to be lowered or increased.

Further fuel price increases will make the cost of living even more unbearable for the ordinary people. The government, which came to power, promising to do away with the taxes on fuel and halve the petroleum prices, ought to consider lowering the loss-recovery levy on fuel, amounting to Rs. 50 a litre, until the global oil market stabilises with prices returning to the pre-Middle East conflict levels. Thereafter, that levy may be re-imposed but in the form of a special commodity tax so that the Indian Oil Company, Sinopec, etc., which are said to control 43% of the local fuel market, will have to pay it, and the Treasury will gain. At present, the loss-recovery levy helps increase the profits of the private companies, ironic as it may sound.

It is hoped that government politicians and their officials will talk less and work more to increase the country’s oil storage capacity. The need to increase oil buffer stocks as a national priority cannot be overstated. Allowing the government’s private sector cronies to import oil cannot be considered a solution to the current energy crisis.

Friday 20th March, 2026

US President Donald Trump, driven by his MAGA dream, may have expected the bombing of Iran to scare the rival world powers, but the explosions in the Gulf have apparently shaken Washington instead. The Pentagon has asked for more than USD 200 billion from the White House for its war on Iran. Trump is now left with no alternative but to keep on pouring tax money into an endless war, much to the consternation of the public at home, with the midterm elections due in November 2026. What the Pentagon has asked for amounts to approximately 10 percent of funds the US government annually spends on healthcare, according to some media reports.

The US is reported to have already spent about USD 18 billion on the Iran war. This shows how costly the conflict will be for the US citizens economically. The predicament of Iran is far worse; it has had to bear huge human and social costs of the war besides the staggering economic losses. Israel has also suffered considerable damage despite its leaders’ claims to the contrary. It is reported to have allocated about USD 10 billion for the war so far.

The Pentagon’s request for more funds is expected to trigger a bipartisan battle on Capitol Hill when it is presented to the Congress. Some analysts have said Trump will have his work cut out to secure the allocation of funds as many Congress members are against his war.

Meanwhile, a hidden cost of the Iran war has come to light. The World Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has issued a dire warning. The FAO report on the Gulf conflict, released yesterday, has pointed out that the ongoing war is likely to lead to a major global food scarcity due to a crippling fertiliser shortage caused by the Iran war, especially the closure of the Hormuz Strait. The Persian Gulf is usually known for its energy exports, but it is also a major hub for global fertiliser production and exports.

Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Oman are among the world’s leading exporters of nitrogen fertilisers, including urea and ammonia, accounting for roughly 30–35 percent of global urea exports and around 20–30 percent of ammonia exports, according to FAO. Overall, up to 30 percent of global fertiliser exports is channelled through the Strait of Hormuz, the closure of which has severely affected international fertiliser supply chains. Production cuts and shipping constraints have stalled an estimated 3–4 million tonnes of fertiliser trade per month, and global fertiliser prices could average 15–20 percent higher during the first half of 2026 if the crisis continues, FAO says. This is a frightening proposition.

Developing countries will be the worst affected by the Gulf conflict as their governments have no way of absorbing the fertiliser price shocks, which will lead to higher production costs and an increase in food inflation. The paddy harvesting season is currently on in this country, and farmers are complaining that they have no fuel for crop-gathering machines. Fuel is likely to be the least of their problems. They will need fertiliser when the next cultivation season commences. The cultivators of other crops also need fertiliser to help maintain the domestic food supply and exports. One can only hope that the government will formulate a strategy to face such an eventuality.

FAO has also warned that “lower fertiliser applications can reduce crop yields and increase food security risks directly and indirectly in vulnerable regions through local supply changes and future reduction of outputs in global breadbaskets, with higher fuel prices also increasing transport and logistics costs, raising the cost of food imports and further pressuring domestic food prices”.

Trump’s allies in the Gulf region will also face structural food security vulnerabilities, according to FAO. They are reportedly dependent on imports for between 70 and 90 percent of their food supply. Their food reserves will run out if the conflict drags on for a long time. Thus, they will face attacks by Iran on their oil fields and critical infrastructure, a drop in their revenue, and a possible food scarcity. Washington will have to factor in this situation when it decides whether to continue attacks on Iran.

Thursday 19th March, 2026

Whenever the JVP-NPP government gets into hot water, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake rushes to Parliament and makes special statements; the CID and the national anti-graft commission try to pull a rabbit out of the hat to distract the public. While the government is drawing heavy flak for mismanaging the current fuel quota system, with long queues of vehicles persisting near filling stations, the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption has recorded a statement from former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on an allegation that during President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government, he, as the Secretary to the Ministry of Urban Development, had a house allocated to a maid of the then Chief Justice (CJ) Mohan Peiris, in an Urban Development Authority housing scheme.

There is no gainsaying that an investigation needs to be conducted to find out whether there were irregularities in the allocation of the aforesaid house and the state suffered any losses therefrom, but there are far bigger issues that need to be addressed. The Rajapaksa government earned notoriety for cronyism, corruption, misuse of state assets, etc., but most of its questionable deals have not been probed. Similarly, the destruction of hundreds of state-owned buildings by the JVP in the late 1980s has gone uninvestigated despite the staggering losses those crimes caused to the state coffers. Maithripala Sirisena, whom the JVP helped secure the executive presidency in 2015, once revealed that the JVP had torched as many as 240 Agrarian Service Centres with paddy storage facilities countrywide during its second reign of terror (1987-89). Now that action has reportedly been taken to reinvestigate crimes, such as abductions, torture and extrajudicial killings in the Batalanda torture chamber in the late 1980s, why the arson attacks on the Agrarian Service Centres, more than 700 state-owned buses, about 14 trains, countless transformers, etc., have not been probed defies comprehension. They were clear violations of the Offences against Public Property Act and must be investigated.

Let the focus now shift from the maid’s house to her employer, Peiris, and some unresolved issues concerning his tenure as the head of the judiciary. One of the first few things that the UNP-led Yahapalana government did after the 2015 regime change was to remove Peiris as CJ. President Sirisena declared the appointment of Peiris as CJ null and void ab initio, and reinstated Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake, claiming that her impeachment had no legal validity. Interestingly, Sirisena himself had spoken and voted in favour of her ‘impeachment’ as a minister in the Rajapaksa government in 2013. Dr. Bandaranayake retired soon after her reinstatement, and Sri Lanka had three CJs on three consecutive days—Peiris, Bandaranayake and her successor K. Sripavan!

Strangely, the Yahapalana government, which claimed that Peiris had functioned as the CJ ‘unlawfully’, stopped short of taking any action against him for having held that position for two years. If it is true that Peiris’ appointment was invalid, as Sirisena and the UNP claimed, then it follows that everything he did as the CJ was unlawful. Peiris drew the CJ’s salary, enjoyed the perks of office, functioned as the Chairman of the Judges’ Institute of Sri Lanka, heard cases, gave judgments and signed vital documents and perhaps even cheques. Why didn’t the Yahapalana government take any action against Peiris and/or the person who appointed him CJ ‘unlawfully’? Sirisena and his erstwhile Yahapalana chums owe an explanation. Shouldn’t the JVP-NPP government probe these issues as well? In fact, it is duty bound to do so because the JVP was an ally of the Yahapalana government.

The UNP’s arguments against the ‘impeachment’ of CJ Bandaranayake were tenable and compelling. The Parliamentary Select Committee, which probed her, was biased; it allegedly refused to allow some witnesses to testify and failed to specify what the due process was. Most of all, the UNP said the resolution passed in a hurry to impeach CJ Bandaranayake had not specifically sought parliamentary approval for her removal. However, if the impeachment process had been flawed, as argued by the UNP and some legal experts, a proper way to right the wrong would have been for President Sirisena to have Parliament undo what it had done. The Yahapalana government, which mustered a two-thirds majority for the 19th Amendment, could have accomplished that task easily. Instead, President Sirisena chose to override Parliament. Sadly, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka egged him on to do what he did, unmindful of the politico-legal consequences of his arbitrary action. The unresolved constitutional imbroglio that arose from glaring violations of due process, high-handed executive action, etc., is certainly far more serious than the allocation of a house for Peiris’ maid and therefore needs to be addressed urgently.