Appointed on May 12, the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who received the support of the opposition, discovered the extent of the bankruptcy left by the Rajapaksa.
The new Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, just after his appointment on May 12, had warned the citizens: that there will be no miracle, only blood and tears. “The next two months will be the most difficult of our lives,” he said in an address to the nation. Ranil Wickremesinghe did not lie, the economic situation of the island continues to deteriorate. The country is bloodless.
Sri Lanka is preparing to default on 12.6 billion dollars (12 billion euros) of foreign bonds. The government said in April that it would stop paying its foreign debt. He’s out of gas. The Prime Minister has asked Sri Lankans not to seek supplies, as the government no longer has enough dollars to pay for the three fuel-laden cargo ships, waiting to be unloaded, in its waters for more than forty days. The queues in front of the few service stations still open now stretch for several kilometers, and the shortage will affect the electricity supply. “A quarter of electricity is produced using oil. Therefore, it is possible that daily power cuts will increase to fifteen hours a day”, announced Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Outstanding drug bills
Sri Lanka received, Wednesday, May 18, 160 million dollars from the World Bank, but the government must pay for other essential goods. The prime minister discovered that drug import bills had not been paid for four months, leading to the blacklisting of the State Pharmaceutical Corporation, the state-owned company supplying the drugs. “The medical supplies division is unable to provide even two items of the fourteen essential drugs we currently need. One is to treat heart disease and the other is the rabies vaccine,” he said.
The situation left by the Rajapaksa is probably worse than imagined by Ranil Wickremesinghe, 73, who has already held the post of prime minister five times. This veteran politician managed to obtain the support of the two main opposition parties, who decided not to enter the government but to support him in tackling the economic crisis. A sign of the difficulty of the task, the prime minister has still not found his finance minister. The country’s top economists, notably Harsha de Silva, have declined.
