Udaya Gammanpila, Minister of Energy emphasizes that priority should be given to supplying fuel to the transport sector rather than generating electricity.
A decision has to be made. Because there are no fuel springs in our country and there are no large stocks of imported fuel. I don’t even have the dollars to bring fuel. That is why we had to reluctantly say we would bring fuel if given dollars.
At present we have two diesel ships with 76,000 metric tons of diesel in the middle of the sea. We have been informed them that if we will give them back the diesel if they provide the required dollars to unload one of them. Tell me a method to bring fuel to this country without dollars, I will follow that method. I am not responsible for supplying dollars to this country ”
“If we give our fuel to the CEB, the country will stop. Remember that the supply of electricity is a matter of control. You can turn on the electricity 24 hours a day, you can turn off the electricity 24 hours a day, you can suspend the electricity for two or three hours. But in the field of transportation there is either fuel or no fuel. The transport sector must be given priority over the electricity sector.”
Minister Udaya Gammanpila stated this while expressing his views to the media yesterday (17).
