OURS is a very considerate government…. It may have jacked up bus and train fares … and sent the prices of motorcycles and three-wheelers through the roof with hefty increases in import duties, but out of its concern … for the poor, it has ensured that they will have aviation fuel in bottle lamps lighting their humble abodes…. Minister of Petroleum Industries Susil Premjayantha has told this newspaper … that a consignment of substandard aviation fuel imported by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) will be disposed of as regular kerosene in the local market. Who will bear the loss? The government has hinted that the foreign supplier will have to. We hope … that it will not be passed on to the ordinary public….

Earlier, the CPC imported petrol mixed with water and caused many a vehicle to develop serious engine trouble. The government’s knee-jerk reaction … was to trot out lame excuses…. One may wonder whether the first ‘C’ in CPC stands for corruption, given the sheer number of crooks at its helm who carry out their sordid operations with impunity. The ‘water-petrol’ deal cost the CPC dear as millions of rupees had to be paid to those whose vehicles suffered … damage. Only two officials were held responsible for that racket. Others got away with it….

Crooks who lined their pockets through a disastrous oil hedging deal have also gone scot-free while the country is spending millions of US dollars on lawsuits overseas. Besides, the benefits of a sharp drop in world oil prices were denied to the public because the CPC kept fuel prices high in a bid to recover part of the loss. The hedging racketeers are going places today thanks to their political connections…. Minister Premjayantha owes the public an explanation…. It is high time the government had rackets at the CPC thoroughly probed and all racketeers brought to justice…. — (May 7)