Sri Lanka's government Monday delayed for two weeks a decision on whether to sell stakes in the state-run oil company after workers threatened to walk out, fuelling panic buying across the country, officials said. The government said in a statement that it had decided to have further talks with trade unions before "restructuring" the state-owned electricity and oil utilities.
Workers of the state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) staged a lunch-hour protest outside the main storage depot here while similar protests were held by employees of the Ceylon Electricity Board.
CPC chief Jaliya Medagama said a government decision on selling a third of his company to India's Bharat Petroleum Corp had been put off by two weeks following the trade union protests.
"The cabinet meeting in respect of that (Bharat deal) will be held in two weeks," Medagama told AFP. "What we saw today is panic buying, but there is no shortage of oil in the country."
The previous government sold one-third of CPC in 2003 to Indian Oil Corp and had earmarked another one-third stake to be sold to a third player, but President Chandrika Kumaratunga's Marxist-backed government came to power in April last year promising to halt privatisation.
However, the government went ahead with plans to "restructure" the energy sector - including the sell-off of a further third of CPC - drawing severe criticism from its own Marxist partner, the JVP, or People's Liberation Front.
Motorists formed long queues for gasoline at stations across Sri Lanka Monday as JVP-backed unions threatened a strike over the privatisation moves.
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