COLOMBO: Hundreds of pricey government vehicles have been abandoned around Sri Lanka’s capital after the country’s new Marxist-leaning president took office, a member of his party said on Wednesday, with hundreds of others missing.

Senior members of the former government had dumped the state-owned cars and SUVs without a proper handover, according to Wasantha Samarasinghe, a member of Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s JVP party.

The fleet includes four-wheel-drive Toyota Land Cruisers and utility vehicles. “We have launched an investigation into who abandoned these vehicles and on what authority they used them,” Samarasinghe told reporters at a public park where the vehicles had been left. He did not say whether the keys had been left with the cars.

Out of a fleet of 833 vehicles registered at the colonial-era Presidential Secretariat, there was no trace of 253, he added. The vehicles are believed to have been taken by senior politicians and officials of previous administrations.

Dissanayake’s rise to power sparks panic

Local election monitors reported the main malpractice recorded during the peaceful vote was the misuse of state-owned vehicles and other resources. Cars are prohibitively expensive in Sri Lanka, which in March 2020 banned the import of vehicles amid a worsening foreign exchange shortage that ultimately saw supplies of food, fuel and medicine run out. A 10-year-old Toyota SUV currently goes for around $150,000, while a five-year-old Range Rover exceeds $300,000.

‘Debt restructuring programme’

Sri Lanka’s new president called on Wednesday for restarting talks with the IMF “immediately” over a $2.9 billion bailout that threw a lifeline to his bankrupt country but imposed painful austerity. “We plan to begin negotiations with the International Monetary Fund immediately,” Dissanayake said in a televised address to the nation.

In his 10-minute address, he said he also wanted to conclude a deal to restructure international sovereign bonds and secure more concessions for the cash-strapped nation. “To advance our debt restructuring programme, we are negotiating with relevant creditors to expedite the process and secure necessary debt relief,” he said.

His call to resume talks with the IMF came after the international lender of last resort said it was ready to discuss its bailout with the new administration. “We look forward to working together with President Dissanayake… towards building on the hard-won gains that have helped put Sri Lanka on a path to economic recovery,” an IMF spokesperson in Washington said.

“We will discuss the timing of the third review of the IMF-supported programme with the new administration as soon as practicable,” the spokesperson said, referring to the periodic review of the bailout.

Analysts, however, say Dissanayake likely has little room to reshape the terms of the deal.

“There are certain red lines that the IMF will not agree to negotiate,” Murtaza Jafferjee of the Colombo-based economic think tank Advocata said.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2024