An unprecedented economic downturn has left many staple foods in short supply, along with gasoline and medicine, and high inflation is destroying household budgets. “It seems appropriate to give government officials permission for a working day of the week and provide them with the necessary facilities to engage in agricultural activities in their backyards,” a cabinet statement said. The extra day off would be a “solution to the food shortage that is expected to occur in the future,” the statement said, adding that reducing civil servants’ travel would also help reduce fuel consumption. The United Nations has warned that Sri Lanka is facing a “terrible humanitarian crisis” and said four in five people in the country of 22 million have been forced to skip meals. Motorists, meanwhile, have been suffering from gasoline and diesel shortages for months, and long queues of vehicles outside gas stations are a regular sight. Civil servants will have a break every Friday for the next three months without a pay cut, according to a cabinet decision, but the arrangement will not apply to basic services staff. The government said any of the 1.5 million public sector workers who wanted to travel abroad to find work would receive up to five years’ unpaid leave without affecting their seniority or retirement. The move is aimed at encouraging more people to find foreign jobs and send money back to the island, which works under a critical foreign exchange shortage to buy imports. Sri Lanka has defaulted on $ 51 billion in foreign debt and is in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout. Public protests are demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa over the mismanagement of the economy and the seriousness of the plight of the people. Rajapaksa introduced sweeping tax cuts shortly after coming to power in November, which have been accused of leaving the island without the means to pay for basic imports. The cash deficit was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which devastated the tourism industry and reduced remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad.
