Govt cars abandoned as Sri Lanka's leftist leader takes charge

COLOMBO: Hundreds of pricey government vehicles have been abandoned around Sri Lanka’s capital after the country’s new Marxism-leaning president took office, a member of his party said Wednesday, with hundreds of others missing.

Senior members of the former government had dumped the state-owned cars and SUVs without a proper handover, according to Wasantha Samarasinghe, a member of Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s JVP party.

The fleet includes four-wheel-drive Toyota Land Cruisers and utility vehicles.

“We have launched an investigation into who abandoned these vehicles and on what authority they used them,” Samarasinghe told reporters at a public park where the vehicles had been left.

He did not say whether the keys had been left with the cars.

Out of a fleet of 833 vehicles registered at the Presidential Secretariat, there was no trace of 253, he added.

The vehicles are believed to have been taken by senior politicians and officials of previous administrations.

Dissanayake came to power following Saturday’s election, riding a promise to change the country’s political culture and tackle corruption and abuse of power.

Local election monitors reported the main malpractice recorded during the peaceful vote was the misuse of state-owned vehicles and other resources.

Cars are prohibitively expensive in Sri Lanka, which in March 2020 banned the import of vehicles amid a worsening foreign exchange shortage that ultimately saw supplies of food, fuel and medicine run out.

A 10-year-old Toyota SUV currently goes for around $150,000, while a five-year-old Range Rover exceeds $300,000.

Months of street protests during an economic meltdown brought on by the foreign exchange crisis culminated in the storming of the presidential palace in July 2022, forcing then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign and flee the country.

His successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, secured a $2.9 billion bailout from the IMF and introduced tough austerity measures while maintaining the ban on car imports.