Furious protesters have been demanding change in the political system and held Rajapaksas responsible for the present state of the economy as well as demanding that “the president and Prime Minister should be imprisoned and their assets should be frozen”, reports Asian Lite News
A massive crowd continues to remain gathered at Galle Face, the main beachfront in the capital Colombo, outside Sri Lankan President’s secretariat to protest against Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa amid the economic crisis in the country with agitators at the protest site terming the government tyrant and full of nepotism.
One of the protestors at the site said, “For years and years the Rajapaksa government took money from us. They stole from us. We are sick and tired of this tyranny because there is so much nepotism here. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa are brothers and we want them to go from here because we do not see any prosperity for our nation. As long as they are here they will not be able to fix the economy.”
“People of many ethnicities and races have come here to protest against tyrant Gotabaya Rajapaksa. These people do not know how to run a country as they do not have any plans. All they want is to steal. There are so many who are campaigning for Rajapaksa to go to jail and we want him to go to jail. All the civil unrest is his fault. We want to oust him and hopefully change our political system,” he added.
One 14-year-old child at the protest site criticised the current government for ruining the nation. “There are a lot of children here who go to school. We have a lot of fantasies and dreams to accomplish when we grow up and we cannot achieve anything in our country.. on our motherland due to Rajapaksa because he has ruined our country and we want to speak up for that. We want a future in our country,” he hoped.
Furious protesters have been demanding change in the political system and held Rajapaksas responsible for the present state of the economy as well as demanding that “the president and Prime Minister should be imprisoned and their assets should be frozen.”
People at the site of the protest were carrying placards with anti-government slogans written on them. Children were carrying placards with the slogans ‘we need a good future’. Others displayed ‘Freeze all Rajapaksa money’ banners to show their anger.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa
A massive protest has been continuing in the Galle Face Green area in the capital city of Colombo as the Island nation is facing its worst economic crisis since independence with food and fuel shortages, soaring prices, and power cuts.
This comes at a time when Sri Lanka is celebrating its New Year. The Sri Lankans are protesting against the government’s handling of the economic situation and demanded the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Protesters have been accusing Rajapaksa’s government of corruption and misrule. (ANI)
Sri Lankan authorities have made a request to international agencies, foreign nationals and Sri Lankan expatriates to make donations or provide essential drugs….reports Asian Lite News
Amid the continued economic hardship in the country, Sri Lankan Health Ministry has said there is a shortage of some drugs and equipment in certain government hospitals.
A shortage of supply of certain drugs occurred due to the delay in opening Letters of Credit in time including one given by India, Sri Lanka’s Newswire reported. The report said several solutions have been identified to that effect, and they are being implemented.
Sri Lankan authorities have made a request to international agencies, foreign nationals and Sri Lankan expatriates to make donations or provide essential drugs.
On Wednesday, the World Bank said that Sri Lanka needs urgent policy measures to address its high levels of debt and debt service, reduce the fiscal deficit, and restore external stability.
The island nation faces a highly uncertain economic outlook due to fiscal and external imbalances.
Released on Wednesday, the World Bank’s latest ‘South Asia Economic Focus Reshaping Norms: A New Way Forward’ projects the region to grow by 6.6 per cent in 2022 and by 6.3 per cent in 2023. The 2022 forecast has been revised downward by 1.0 percentage points compared to the January projection, mostly due to the impact of the war in Ukraine.
This comes as countries in South Asia are already grappling with rising commodity prices, supply bottlenecks, and vulnerabilities in financial sectors.
“The World Bank is deeply concerned about the uncertain economic outlook in Sri Lanka and the impact on people,” said Faris Hadad-Zervos, World Bank Country Director for Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. “We are working on providing emergency support for poor and vulnerable households to help them weather the economic crisis and we remain committed to the wellbeing of the people of Sri Lanka, and to a narrative of sustainable and inclusive growth that will require concerted and collective action.” (ANI)
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said on Wednesday that the government is willing to talk with the young protesters…reports Asian Lite News
The Sri Lankan government has announced that it is ready to talk with the protesters, who have occupied the entrance to the President’s Office in Colombo.
The protests have entered the fifth day.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said on Wednesday that the government is willing to talk with the young protesters, who started a two-day protest on April 9 in Galle Face Green, iconic city point opposite the country’s former Parliament, which now runs as the President’s office.
In a move to discourage the protest and send those attending it to villages ahead of Sinhala and Tamil New Year on Wednesday and Thursday (April 13 and 14), the government on Friday (April 8) declared a week-long holiday. But, the protest has been continuing with people gathering from around the country and putting up tents, free food provided and other facilities arranged.
On Monday, Prime Minister Rajapaksa while addressing the nation asked the protesters to give up the protest. He said that similar protests in both Sinhala majority South and Tamil rebels fighting in North to oust politicians in the past had dangerous results with thousands of lives lost. However, the former President during whose tenure the three-decade-long war against Tamil rebels ended, said he still has the courage and determination to face any challenge at present, just as he did before during the period of the conflict.
The anti-government apolitical protesters, an ‘Arab Spring’ moment in the Island nation, demand President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his brother Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and their entire family and the government to quit in the backdrop of the worst ever economic crisis. The country has been facing shortages in fuel, electricity, LP gas and food. Slogan chanting ‘Gota go home’ protesters charged that the Rajapaksas have looted the country.
The medical experts last week announced that the country was going through a medical emergency with most of the essential drugs gone out of stock and urged international organisations and expatriates to help.
On Tuesday, the country’s Central bank announced that it has decided to default all external debt amounting to nearly $51 billion as a “last resort” as the country was in a dire need of foreign exchange to import essentials like fuel and food.
Lankan Ministry added that debt repayments would be restructured in a manner consistent with an economic adjustment program supported by the IMF…reports Asian Lite News
Sri Lanka’s Finance Ministry on Tuesday said the government has decided to suspend normal debt servicing of all affected debts for an interim period till it puts together an orderly and consensual restructuring program supported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In a statement, the Ministry added that debt repayments would be restructured in a manner consistent with an economic adjustment program supported by the IMF, which will apply to all debt repayments.
However, it said credit facilities and any amounts disbursed under existing credit facilities are not subject to this policy and would be serviced normally, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Finance Ministry added that creditors, including foreign governments that had lent to the South Asian nation, were free to capitalise any interest payments due to them from Tuesday afternoon or opt for payback in Sri Lankan rupees.
Sri Lanka is presently in the middle of a severe economic crisis featuring shortage of foreign exchange, fuel and other essential supplies as well as rising inflation.
Premadasa is spearheading a campaign against the 20th amendment of the constitution that took powers away from the parliament and vested them in the President….reports Rahul Kumar
After intense debates in the parliament with no solutions proposed by the truncated government of Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, opposition parties are now looking at bringing a no-confidence motion against the beleaguered Rajapaksa.
Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa, who heads the Samagi Jana Balwegaya (SJB)–the main opposition party in the island nation, said his party is thinking of moving a no-confidence motion against Rajapaksa unless his government brings immediate relief to the people impacted by the economic crisis.
Sri Lanka has been rocked by public protests for more than a month with people facing acute shortage of food, fuel and power. Angry protestors have even attacked the President’s residence and those of other politicians. Due to rising inflation, masses have reduced their spending on food, schools are shut and tourist activity has come to a standstill.
Premadasa is spearheading a campaign against the 20th amendment of the constitution that took powers away from the parliament and vested them in the President. He told the media: “We have decided to bring a no- confidence motion against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa as he has failed to address the country in connection with economic policies. We have called a meeting with all opposition leaders and will take a final decision on it soon.”
His party has also moved a resolution before the parliament to withdraw the 20th amendment which will transfer more powers from the President to the parliament.
Meanwhile, Rajapaksa is also under pressure from former allies–the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which withdrew support from Rajapaksa earlier this week over the economic and social breakdown in the country. The SLFP too wants President Rajapaksa to reduce the executive powers of the President and vest those with the parliament.
SLFP leader Maithripala Sirisena told journalists that his party will be meeting with President Rajapaksa on Sunday evening to urge him to form an interim administration with an all-party cabinet. He also wants the President to reduce the number of his family members from governmental positions.
For nearly a week, Sri Lanka has managed without a proper administration after the previous Ministry resigned owing to large-scale public protests. Sirisena made it clear that Sunday’s meeting with Rajapaksa will try to convince the President that the latter has to reduce the executive powers bestowed on the President through the 20th amendment to the constitution.
He said: “The entire country demands the removal of the Rajapaksa clan and President Rajapaksa from politics in Sri Lanka. It seems that the protests and agitations against the President and the SLPP government will not recede as long as the incumbent government and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa remain in power.”
Stressing that the conditions are dire for a majority of people, Sirisena said: “The people need immediate solutions to their current grievances such as the power outage, the skyrocketing of the price of essential commodities, food shortage, ever escalating cost of living and many more. If we are to find immediate solutions to these pressing issues, first and foremost action must be taken to form a stable government.”
China’s investment of an estimated $1.4 billion in Sri Lanka’s Colombo Port City project is the largest single foreign investment in the island nation’s history. …reports SUMIT KUMAR SINGH
China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR), now known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), was announced in 2013 and it seems it has one purpose only — subjugation of the economically fragile nations on the way to becoming a great power by the time the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrates 100 years.
There are numerous examples of countries, developed and developing, which are economically fragile that have become even more fragile courtesy the OBOR. The recent situation in Pakistan and Sri Lanka is case in point. The Centre for Global Development in a 2018 study of countries hosting OBOR projects found 23 of them in a state of debt distress.
Sri Lanka has taken loans from China, at lending rates in the range of 3-6 per cent against the 1-3 per cent offered by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). As a result, Sri Lanka has had to request China for a debt-to-equity swap, selling their own equity to Chinese companies as they have not been able to pay back their loans.
China’s investment of an estimated $1.4 billion in Sri Lanka’s Colombo Port City project is the largest single foreign investment in the island nation’s history. Dubbed as a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between the government of Sri Lanka and the CHEC Port City Colombo (CPCC) Pvt Ltd, the project has been much publicised for the employment opportunities and huge revenues which it would generate for the Sri Lankans.
What is seldom spoken about is the fact that of the 269 hectares of reclaimed land, 43 per cent will be controlled by the CPCC through a 99-year lease agreement. This is reminiscent of the not too long-ago takeover of the Hambantota Port on a 99-year lease by China Merchant Port Holdings (CMPH). The port is now operated ‘jointly’ by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority and CMPH, with the latter holding 80 percent stake in the port and exercising near total control over its operations. Sri Lanka is just one example of how China uses its economic power to ensnare unsuspecting, and sometimes complicit governments in an intricate web of debt and dependencies.
The BRI is the garb to entice nations into futile and ineffectual projects which are extravagant compared to more realistic challenges being faced. The projects are promoted as one of its kind infrastructure development project with fictitious prospects; however they are of significance and benefit primarily to China.
The initiatives provide easier and convenient opportunities to address vulnerabilities of China at the cost and investment of individual nations. The mechanism provides expedient access for Chinese state owned companies to saturate the economies of small nations and saddle the borrowing nation with loans which can be leveraged when needed. In addition, China with its financial freedom has emerged as an independent nation providing financial alternatives over international organisations like the IMF, and Asian Development Bank (ADB) to secure individual and selfish designs.
The infrastructure projects of road, rail, buildings, ports etc. with inflated costs are advertised as comprehensive solutions without disclosing the methodology and terms of execution.
Port City Colombo(Wikipedia)
The projects in Sri Lanka like the $104 million Lotus tower which never got commissioned or the $209 million Mattala Airport which is the ‘World’s Emptiest Airport’, though presumed to be funded by China had all its costs recovered through execution by Chinese entities, using equipment/ machinery/material from China including significant proportion of labour/top management.
In effect, whilst Sri Lanka paid for the projects, it filled Chinese treasury for a requirement which was not essential. Further, due to the confidentiality of project being pursued by the government the actual cost of the projects are also largely exaggerated. The Chinese approach in Sri Lanka has been outright capitalist where in the Sri Lankan economy is flooded with cheap Chinese goods so as to kill the local economy and extract as much Strategic advantage by trapping the Government of the day in frivolous infrastructure projects.
It needs to be understood that all Chinese deals come with hidden agendas particularly with the aim to in debt the country, take control of land, fill the coffers of China at the expense of smaller countries under the garb of development. The modus operandi of engagement has been similar in Africa, Asia and Latin America wherein countries have been indebted with Chinese loan of billions of dollars.
Thus, all countries in the region must guard their sovereignty in their best interests, lest it is also ‘Coloured Red’ under the Chinese shadow.
Silverwood represented England in six Tests and seven ODIs and played county cricket for Yorkshire and Middlesex…reports Asian Lite News
Former England men’s Head Coach, and player Chris Silverwood has been appointed as the Head Coach of Sri Lanka’s national men’s team, Sri Lanka Cricket announced on Saturday.
“I am very excited to be on board with Sri Lanka and I cannot wait to get over to Colombo and get started. They have a talented and passionate group of players and I am really looking forward to meeting up with the players and coaching staff very soon,” said Silverwood, accepting the contract.
Silverwood was appointed as Head Coach of England men’s team in October 2019, having previously been the England men’s bowling coach working under then Head Coach Trevor Bayliss when England won the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019.
Silverwood represented England in six Tests and seven ODIs and played county cricket for Yorkshire and Middlesex.
After his playing career, he took up coaching, taking over Mashonaland Eagles in Zimbabwe, winning the inaugural Logan Cup before a successful stint as the Head Coach of Essex County Cricket.
At Essex, Silverwood helped the club’s promotion in his first year in charge and then led Essex to the County Championship title in 2017, after a lapse of 25 years.
The first competitive assignment with the Sri Lanka national team for Silverwood, who has been contracted for two years, would be the upcoming Test series away in Bangladesh, the SLC stated.
“We are delighted to appoint Chris as the new Head Coach of the national team. He is an extremely experienced coach and from our discussions with him in the recruitment process it is clear he has the required qualities we are looking for to take the team forward,” said Ashley De Silva, CEO of Sri Lanka Cricket.
After Sri Lanka’s former Head Coach Mickey Arthur ended his contract in last December, the position was vacant. Since January, the country’s former fast bowler and bowling coach Rumesh Ratnayake was acting as the interim head coach.
India's Foreign Minister Dr S. Jaishankar meets with Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa
To help the island country, New Delhi has adopted a two-pronged strategy; extending to Sri Lanka lines of credit to tide over the immediate forex crisis and strengthening its economy through non-official channels like foreign direct investments and shoring up the sagging tourism sector of the island nation which is a major foreign exchange earner for Colombo….reports Asian Lite News
As Sri Lanka faces the crisis of an economic meltdown, India has emerged as its true friend. Assistance in different forms extended to the people of the island country under New Delhi’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy has gone a long way to mitigate the crisis when Beijing has refused to accede to Colombo’s request to restructure the debts incurred by Sri Lanka under the Belt and Road Initiative of China so it can extricate itself from the debt trap it finds itself in.
Because of an unprecedented shortage of foreign exchange, the basic needs of the people of Sri Lanka cannot be met. There are huge queues outside petrol pumps as there is no foreign exchange reserve to import petrol, pharmacies have run out of medicines and newspaper houses have run out of newsprint. Since January 2022, the inflation rate has crossed 18 per cent in Sri Lanka. Angry residents have hit the streets in protest and the Lankan government responded by imposition of curfew.
To help the island country, New Delhi has adopted a two-pronged strategy; extending to Sri Lanka lines of credit to tide over the immediate forex crisis and strengthening its economy through non-official channels like foreign direct investments and shoring up the sagging tourism sector of the island nation which is a major foreign exchange earner for Colombo.
The suspension of tourism in the face of Covid – 19 has triggered the crisis that faces Sri Lanka today. With foreign exchange earnings from tourism falling, the debt burden has become unsustainable for Sri Lanka. At the end of February 2022, Colombo was left with a forex reserve of only $2.31 billion while it was faced with a debt repayment burden of $4 billion in 2021-22. The bulk of the debt was owed to China, nearly $8 billion, with nearly $2 billion payable to Beijing in 2021-22.
Between 2005 and 2015, when Mahinda Rajapaksa was the President of Sri Lanka, Colombo had borrowed heavily from China to build infrastructure, including a mega port city at Hambantota. These capital-intensive projects did not yield the expected returns, leaving the Lankan economy reeling under a mountain of debt. The International Monetary Fund in a recent report has stated that Sri Lanka faces the problem of solvency and foreign debt is the culprit.
New Delhi’s aim in extending a helping hand to Colombo is not to shore up the beleaguered ruling Rajapaksa family whose human rights records during the days of civil war were questionable. India wants to help the people of Sri Lanka when they are faced with a crisis in their daily life.
At a humanitarian level, India is providing shelter to the fresh arrival of refugees, mostly ethnic Tamils, who have escaped from Lanka in the wake of the unprecedented economic crisis. On March 22, 2022, 16 Sri Lankan Tamils arrived on the Rameswaram coast in two batches.
For decades, Sri Lankan Tamils have arrived in Rameswaram and other coasts, escaping civil war and hostilities; but the latest arrivals were different. They were economic refugees, escaping the economic crisis. Only 30 kms away across the Palk Strait, the Tamil Nadu coast has always been a preferred refuge for Sri Lankan Tamils because of their ethnic affinity. A reasonable assessment is that more of Lankan Tamils would arrive in Tamil Nadu in the coming weeks, because of unemployment and skyrocketing inflation.
Refugees from Sri Lanka have continued to arrive in different waves in Tamil Nadu, where people and political parties have traditionally welcomed them. About 19,000 Sri Lankan families, or nearly 60,000 people, still live in 108 refugee camps set up for Lankan Tamils in Tamil Nadu. Another about 34,000 Lankan Tamils live outside the camps with refugee certificates. The Tamil Nadu government provides free education, health care, ration. The head of a refugee family gets a monthly allowance of at least Rs 1,000. Many of the refugees work in hotels and other sectors, or as daily wage labourers. The DMK government has announced a scheme to build 7,469 houses for Sri Lankan refugees, 3,520 in the first phase, and provide financial assistance to refugee students for higher education.
On March 16, 2022, Finance Minister of Sri Lanka Basil Rajapaksa met Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi in Delhi and noted the deepening people-to-people relationship between the two countries, including in the cultural sphere. Rajapaksa emphasised on the need for bilateral economic cooperation. Modi promised that India would continue to stand with the people of Sri Lanka.
To boost tourism in Sri Lanka, the Indian Prime Minister proposed that the two countries jointly promote two religious tourist circuits, the Buddhist circuit and the Ramayana circuit. Buddhism had travelled from India to Sri Lanka.
King Ashoka’s son Arahant Mahinda converted then king of Sri Lanka Devanampiya Tissa to Buddhism in the 3rd century B.C., says a research paper in Oxford Bibliographies. Theravada Buddhism is the major religion of the island. The tradition of Ramayana and Lord Rama building a bridge across the sea from Rameswaram to reach Lanka with his Army is too well-known.
With one-third of all tourists visiting Sri Lanka being from India, the move of Modi to promote the island as a destination for religious tourism will further increase the footprint of visitors from India to Lanka.
In his meeting with Basil Rajapaksa, Modi promised to provide funds for the improvement of Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka, and develop 52 tourism sites in the island.
During his visit to New Delhi in the first week of February 2022, Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka G. L. Peiris noted that the arrival of Indian tourists to Lanka has been a bridge between the two countries. For the past several months now, the largest number of international arrivals in Lanka has been from India. Since the improvement in the pandemic situation, about 100,000 tourists have arrived in Sri Lanka, more than 45 percent of them being from India.
It was also decided in the meeting between Narendra Modi and Basi Rajapaksa that unresolved conflicts over fishing rights and clashes between fishermen of the two countries would be resolved with a humanitarian approach.
Keeping in view that India is its closest neighbour, with a relationship more than 2,500 years old and a long legacy of intellectual, cultural, religious and linguistic interaction, Sri Lanka, in its hour of crisis, has invited more Indian investments in various sectors, including ports, infrastructure, energy and power and manufacturing. A fresh flow of foreign direct investment will help shore up the foreign exchange reserve position of Colombo.
Besides being its second largest trading partner, India is one of the largest contributors of FDI in the island country, with a number of leading Indian companies having an established presence there. Between 2005 and 2019, FDI from India to Sri Lanka totalled to about US$ 1.7 billion. The investments are mostly in the areas of petroleum retail, tourism and hotel, manufacturing, real estate, telecommunication and banking and financial services.
In the wake of the back-to-back visits of the Lankan Foreign Minister and the Minister of Finance to seek India’s help in its hour of crisis, India has agreed to develop three wind farms in Sri Lanka, in three islands off Jaffna, with a budget of $12 billion. The wind turbines would help when Sri Lanka is faced with a severe shortage of power.
The Indian project, for which a MoU was signed during Indian Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar’s visit to Colombo to attend the BIMSTEC conference, would effectively replace a Chinese offer. Colombo had earlier resolved to award the project to a Chinese firm but desisted after taking into Indian concerns about a Chinese venture coming up close to the Indian shores.
During his Colombo visit, the Indian External Affairs Minister virtually inaugurated a Cultural Centre at Jaffna, built with Indian grant at a cost of Rs 75 crore. The centre has an auditorium with a capacity of 600 people, a multimedia library with online research facilities, exhibition and gallery space and a museum. There is a facility of training in various arts and a language lab. The Centre will provide social infrastructure to people of the Northern Province and promote the ancient cultural heritage of Jaffna.
As an immediate measure to help Sri Lanka tackle its power shortage, Indian Oil has decided to release 6,000 tonnes of diesel. To combat the petroleum shortage on a long- term basis, an agreement has been reached with India to redevelop the World War II era oil tank farm in the eastern port district of Trincomalee. The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and the local operators of IOC would get 24 and 14 of the tanks, respectively, while the remaining 61 oil tanks would be developed by Trinco Petroleum Terminal, a joint venture of Ceylon Petroleum Corporation with 51 percent share and local IOC with 49 percent share.
Relations between New Delhi and Colombo headed south in February 2021 when the Sri Lanka government cancelled an MoU with India and Japan for Colombo’s East Coast Terminal project and awarded it to a Chinese company. Now the West Coast Terminal project has been awarded to the Adani group of India.
During Jaishankar’s visit to Colombo, India and Sri Lanka signed an MoU for Bharat Electronics to set up a state-of-the-art Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Colombo; a significant step as it would enhance co-operation on maritime security between India and Sri Lanka in an Indian Ocean region where China trying to expand its influence. India has also provided a naval floating dock to the Lankan navy and two Dornier aircraft for the air force of Sri Lanka.
Beijing is yet to respond to the request made by Colombo to restructure the Chinese debt, when Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi visited Sri Lanka in the early part of January 2022. All that China may offer is a credit of $2.5 billion, but that, too, was at the stage of consideration till the end of March 2022. India, on the other hand, in a remarkable display of neighbourly feeling, has already extended a line of credit of $1 billion to help Sri Lanka buy food and pharmaceutical products; and another line of credit of $500 million in February to enable Colombo to buy petroleum products.
Lanka’s newly appointed finance minister Sabry also told local media that his resignation was to pave the way for establishing an interim government…reports Asian Lite News
Sri Lanka’s newly-appointed Finance Minister Ali Sabry resigned on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after his appointment.
Sabry said he had accepted the portfolio only as an interim measure, reports Xinhua news agency.
He said he was also willing to step down from his parliamentary seat if the President wished to appoint a suitable person to handle the situation from outside the current Parliament.
Sabry also told local media that his resignation was to pave the way for establishing an interim government.
Sabry and three other ministers were sworn into the new cabinet on Monday after the Sri Lankan Cabinet offered to resign from their positions on Sunday night in response to calls from the protests amid economic instability and a severe fuel shortage in the island nation.
Sri Lanka has for days been facing public protests calling for immediate measures to be taken by the government to solve the economic crisis, hours-long power cuts and shortages in fuel and other essential supplies.
The ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) lost its parliament majority as 42 MPs on Tuesday announced they would sit independently.
On Monday, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa extended an invitation to all political parties to join the government to find solutions to the ongoing crisis.
During a meeting, the GMOA revealed that there would be a severe drug shortage in the country due to the poor management by the government…reports Asian Lite News
An emergency health situation has been declared in Sri Lanka from Tuesday because of the severe drug shortage in the country.
This decision was announced after an emergency general committee meeting of the country’s Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) to discuss the imposition of the emergency law and the severe drug shortage, the Daily Mirror reported.
GMOA Secretary Dr Shenal Fernando said this decision to announce the emergency health situation was taken to protect the lives of patients.
During a meeting, the GMOA revealed that there would be a severe drug shortage in the country due to the poor management by the government.
The Sri Lankan newspaper said that the current drug shortage will move into a very serious situation in the future if the present economic crisis continues.
Earlier, the government had declared the public health service an essential service on February 12.
“After declaring the health services essential, the government should have ensured the supply of essential medicinal drugs in the country,” Dr Fernando said.
Therefore, the government and the health ministry should take full responsibility for the emergency drug shortage, he added.
On Saturday, Sri Lanka has imposed a three-day island-wide curfew after mass protests erupted in Colombo over public discontent with the government’s efforts in dealing with the economic crisis that has gripped the country.
Sri Lankan President on Friday had declared a country-wide state of emergency to ensure “public security and maintenance of public order.” (ANI)
