Why are officers running away leaving Land Cruiser and SUV cars, what kind of fear is there in Sri Lanka as soon as Dissanayake becomes the President?

Colombo: Action has started visible as soon as Anura Kumara Dissanayake became the President of Sri Lanka. Since the formation of the new government in Sri Lanka, hundreds of expensive government vehicles have been found abandoned here and there in the capital Colombo. A member of President Dissanayake’s party gave this information on Wednesday. He told that hundreds of expensive government vehicles are also missing. Vasantha Samarasinghe, a member of Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna or JVP party, said that senior leaders and officers of the old government left the government cars and SUVs behind without giving any information or handover.

It was told that leaders and officers were leaving their vehicles outside the President’s office also. There is no trace of the keys either. This fleet includes Toyota’s Land Cruiser and other expensive vehicles. JVP leader Samarasinghe told the media that our government has started investigation as to who left these vehicles and on whose instructions they were used. However, he did not say whether the keys were left with the vehicles or not. He said that out of the fleet of 833 vehicles registered in the President’s Secretariat, 253 have no trace.

Now the question is why this is happening in Sri Lanka. Are leaders and officers doing this because of Anura Kumara Dissanayake becoming the President of Sri Lanka? Anura Kumara Dissanayake won the elections held on Saturday. He promised to change the political culture of the country and tackle corruption and abuse of power. Local election observers said that there have been complaints of misuse of government vehicles and other government resources during peaceful voting. Many leaders and officers used government vehicles for personal use.

Import of vehicles was banned in Sri Lanka in March 2020. Because of this, the prices of vehicles in the country are skyrocketing. In March 2020, foreign exchange reserves in Sri Lanka were decreasing rapidly. Due to this, there was a severe shortage of food items, fuel and medicines. A 10-year-old Toyota SUV costs around $150,000 (about Rs 12,551,827), while a five-year-old Range Rover costs more than $300,000.

There were months of street protests during the economic collapse caused by the foreign exchange crisis. In July 2022, protesters stormed Rashtrapati Bhavan. After this, the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had to flee the country. His successor Ranil Wickremesinghe secured a $2.9 billion bailout from the IMF and introduced stringent economic measures. During this period, the ban on car import was also maintained.

Tags: International news, World news