Hundreds of protesters gathered near the private residence of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in a suburb of Colombo late Thursday and were dispersed by police using tear gas and water cannons, a Reuters witness said. Amal Edirimanne, a senior police chief, said a curfew had been imposed on four police stations in Colombo, the country’s commercial capital. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Protesters, some dressed in motorcycle helmets, tore down a wall and hurled bricks at police before setting fire to a bus on a road leading to Gotabaya’s home, a Reuters witness said. The island of 22 million people faces power outages of up to 13 hours a day because the government does not have enough foreign exchange for fuel imports. read more The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will begin talks with Sri Lankan authorities on a possible loan program in the coming days, a spokesman said on Thursday as the government sought a way out of the crisis. read more The government is turning off the street lights to save electricity, Energy Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi told reporters as the continuing diesel shortage brought more power outages and disrupted trading on the main stock exchange. Power outages add to the pain of Sri Lankans who are already facing shortages of basic necessities and prices are skyrocketing. Retail inflation reached 18.7% in March compared to the same period last year, the statistical service announced on Thursday. Food inflation reached 30.2% in March, in part due to currency devaluation and last year’s ban on chemical fertilizers, which was later reversed. Inflation was at its worst level in a decade, said Dimantha Mathew of First Capital Research. A shipment of diesel under a $ 500 million credit line from India was expected on Saturday, Wanniarachchi said, though she added that she would not rectify the problem. “Once it arrives, we will be able to reduce cargo discharge hours, but until it rains, most likely sometime in May, power outages will have to continue,” he said. “There is nothing else we can do.” The water level in reservoirs supplying hydroelectric projects fell to record lows, while demand had hit record lows during the hot and dry season, he said. The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) reduced daily trading in two hours from the usual four and a half due to power outages for the rest of this week at the request of stockbrokers, the stock exchange said in a statement. However, the shares fell after the opening of the market on Thursday and the CSE stopped trading for 30 minutes – the third time in two days – after falling the index watched by leading companies by more than 5%. The crisis is a result of tax cuts and the effects of the coronavirus pandemic combined with historically weak government finances, which have led to a 70% drop in foreign exchange reserves over the past two years. read more Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Uditha Jayasinghe, Written by Devjyot Ghoshal, Edited by Grant McCool and Alistair Bell Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
