Former Member of Parliament Patali Champika Ranawaka has accused the government of misleading the public over fuel pricing and demanded an immediate cut, citing what he said were import costs of around Rs. 225 per litre for petrol and Rs. 240 per litre for diesel at current global oil prices.
Addressing the media on Thursday, the former minister rejected the government’s justification that prices cannot be reduced because existing stocks were bought at higher rates. “Fuel stocks purchased in February were bought at the old prices. Yet fuel prices were increased immediately after the conflict began. The increase was applied to fuel that had already been purchased at lower rates,” he said. He alleged the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation earned more than Rs. 600 crore from the post-Middle East-conflict hike — and that the same arithmetic ought to apply in reverse now that crude has retreated to pre-conflict levels.
Patali called on the government, the Central Bank and other authorities to publish the full fuel-pricing formula — including landed import costs, the retail price build-up and taxes — as was done in 2023 and 2024 under the prior automatic pricing mechanism.
He also alleged irregularities in diesel procurement, claiming purchases from Trafigura and Aditya Birla had been arranged at excessive cost. “These costs are now being passed on to the public. In addition to the coal procurement controversy, there has also been a diesel procurement fraud,” he said. The former minister said complaints had already been lodged and called for a full investigation.
The Ranawaka allegations land a day after Deputy Finance Minister Anil Jayantha Fernando told Parliament that an immediate fuel price reduction was not feasible because earlier stocks had been bought at higher prices — the framing Patali directly rejects. Brent crude closed below $80 a barrel on Tuesday after the US–Iran deal capped a sustained de-escalation in Hormuz transit risk. The CPC’s June pricing revision was held without any change in late May, with the corporation citing earlier purchase commitments.
Source: Newswire.
