Daily News Editorial

Towards post-pandemic recovery

Yesterday, the total number of COVID-19 infection cases in Sri Lanka reached 309 while the number of recoveries reached 100. The slow increase in infections detected spiked suddenly by over 20 cases in the past two days prompting health authorities to be thankful that they had not quite begun the phased relaxing of the tight curfew regime.

Now the scheduled relaxing of the prolonged curfew in the Western Province and Puttalam district has been postponed till April 27. At the same time, the phased relaxing of the varied curfew regime imposed in other provinces will be implemented but with tighter precautionary measures.

Despite the slow, continued rise of infection cases, the number of fatalities has remained at seven. The added new infections all seem to be restricted to people who have come into contact with already identified COVID-19 positive cases. The health authorities, therefore, remain cautiously optimistic that the current trend in the epidemic in the country has remained within the existing pool of patient contacts. This is an indication of a probable containment of the epidemic although its suppression to the level of a controlled illness, pending a cure and vaccine, is not yet in sight.

This slow evolution of the pandemic within the country fully vindicates President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s decision to abruptly and drastically suspend national life on the two most important fronts: the urban-industrial economy and public politics.

Whole sectors of economic life were quick to follow governmental advice and shut down. The citizenry’s instinct of self-preservation, including collective survival, has helped make the national lockdown a success in comparison with many other countries.

But public politics is another matter. The immediate life threat of an epidemic prompted quick popular co-operation with the mandatory health strictures. However, the long term prospects for the nation are something that both engages public discussion and mobilises people, especially those sections worst affected. So does the manner of the safety nets now being devised and implemented for the benefit of those severely affected sectors.

The President had dissolved Parliament early with the intention of holding a snap General Election, the reason being the need for legislative reform for better governance. But with the COVID-19 outbreak, he did not hesitate to put off the planned early elections.

When COVID-19 worsened into an epidemic within the country, with Parliament non-functioning, the Prime Minister acted to convene meetings with all Parliamentary political parties for the purpose of briefing them on national action to manage the epidemic. These consultations were certainly useful in keeping all sections of the public, as represented by these parties, informed of the contingency measures. It no doubt helped reassure the citizenry that the national leadership was not only acting competently but was doing so with sensitivity to public accountability.

By mid-April, however, indications of an early containment of the spread of the disease prompted some thinking in favour of resuming the delayed Parliamentary hustings. A General Election date in mid-May was speculated on by some political circles. This prompted concerns that this would be too early in the course of the on-going epidemic and could reverse the current positive trend.

However, the powers-that-be wisely waited for the National Elections Commission (NEC) to decide. The Commission has now done so after careful consultation with all relevant authorities and an assessment of its own operational capacities countrywide in the face of the health threat. The June 20th date now set by the NEC will give the health authorities ample time to bring the epidemic well under control, unless there is some unforeseen reversal either medically or administratively.

Now the country’s political parties as well as their citizen loyalists have the challenge of maintaining the epidemic countering social discipline even as they get on to an electioneering footing. Any attempt to cut corners, to downplay or ignore the current social hygiene strictures will be fraught with the risk of a revived epidemic that will be fatal to many more citizens on the one hand while undermining the economic recovery efforts on the other.

Much of the election campaigning, once it is formally allowed to kick-off, will have to be through the electronic and cyber media. The NEC can be expected to diligently monitor the news media industry as well as the Internet spaces to ensure non-partisan coverage and, ethical and legal behaviour online.

At the same, the citizenry will watch to see whether politicians will take undue advantage of the epidemic impact to win votes. Those provincial level politicos who attempt to do so by favouring this or that vote bank in the distribution of social welfare hand-outs and the implementation of safety measures should be singled out by the party leaderships and disciplined. The Governing party has a special responsibility in this regard since it is closer to the reins of power.

A steady progress toward holding Parliamentary Elections will certainly complement the President’s current early steps toward economic revival.

The Island Editorial

Oil and pumpkin

Whoever would have thought a microorganism would upend the world, in this bizarre manner? Covid-19 has not spared any country, and the worst affected nations are in the Global North, which boasts the most advanced healthcare systems.

Time was when powerful oil companies could even hold the world to ransom, but their black gold is losing its value, albeit temporarily. The worst is yet to come as the global demand for oil is extremely low; it is not likely to increase significantly, in the foreseeable future. The world is currently drenched in oil thanks to lockdowns.

In a jaw-dropping turn of events, the price of the main US oil benchmark fell below zero, on Monday, for the first time in history, and some traders reportedly had to pay their buyers to remove their oil, which they could not store. The oil prices, however, bounced back to the positive territory later on. The June US crude futures contracts, trading at the time of writing, had also plummeted. Economic analysts prognosticate that if the current trend continues, oil companies may have to ‘pay to sell their product’ over a considerable period of time! It looks as if the oil giants had found themselves in the same predicament as the poor Sri Lankan farmers who have to give away their produce such as pumpkins during gluts.

The global demand for oil has collapsed due to lockdowns, the world over, and the attendant global economic downturn. A price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, with several others joining in, exacerbated the situation by causing a huge increase in the production of crude for several weeks. When oil prices kept falling rapidly, US President Donald Trump offered his services as a mediator to safeguard the interests of the oil industry and his own country. He used what is described as the red phone of the oil market to defuse tensions and reconcile the warring producers, who finally agreed to draw a line under their hostile actions and reduce their output to stabilise the crashing prices. But the falling demand for oil has put paid to Trump’s efforts to help overcome the crisis, once and for all. He himself is in trouble; he has had to contend with the problem of falling oil prices, at home, while drawing heavy flak for his failure to tackle the Covid-19 crisis effectively. It has been a double whammy for him and the US. Worse, he is now under pressure to reopen America though the so-called curve is far from flattened, and coronavirus is on the march.

The rebounding of American crude prices above zero may be considered a positive sign by the oil industry, but, overall, trouble is far from over for the US as well as others; its storage facilities are filling up fast, according to media reports. The same goes for other nations engaged in the oil business. They, too, are unable to store their oil.

Adversity is said to make strange bedfellows. Oil producing nations are likely to sink their differences and strike another deal to slash the global output further in a bid to prop up crude prices, but the slump in demand is bound to continue at least for a couple of months, as it stands. The Covid-19 crisis is not likely to go away soon. It will be quite a while before airlines resume their operations fully, factories reopen and roads, where fossil fuel burning has decreased drastically, are gutted with vehicles again.

Given the woes of big oil companies, it is the opinion of market analysts that the most profitable part of the petroleum business, at present, is to own storage tankers. If only we had developed the Trincomalee oil tank farm and kept it operational to cater to the growing demand for fuel storage!