Sri Lanka leader trims cabinet of relatives ahead of IMF talks

COLOMBO

Sri Lanka’s embattled leader dropped two of his brothers and a nephew from his cabinet yesterday, following public anger over the ruling family’s mismanagement of a crippling economic crisis and calls for his resignation.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has presided over the island nation’s most painful downturn in memory and his government is preparing for imminent bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund.

Huge protests have nonetheless demanded Rajapaksa stand down, including tens of thousands of people camped outside his seafront office for more than a week.

The new cabinet retains Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabaya’s older brother and the head of Sri Lanka’s ruling clan, while leaving out eldest sibling Chamal and younger brother Basil, the former finance minister.

Mahinda’s eldest son Namal, who ran the sports ministry and had been touted as a future leader before the crisis, was also dropped.

The 21-member cabinet is seven people fewer than its predecessor, which resigned en masse two weeks ago in response to public outrage over nepotism and corruption.

New Finance Minister Ali Sabry led a delegation to Washington over the weekend to open talks with the IMF from today.

Sri Lanka is seeking up to $4 billion from the IMF to overcome its balance-of-payments crisis and boost depleted reserves.

Alongside the acute shortages, Sri Lanka is also facing record inflation and lengthy electricity blackouts, as the government has run out of foreign currency to import fuel.

Lanka IOC, a petrol retailer which accounts for a third of the local market, announced yet another steep hike in fuel costs yesterday to account for the collapse in value of the local currency.

The cost of diesel, the fuel most commonly used for public transport, has risen by 138 percent since the start of the year while petrol prices have nearly doubled.

The government last week announced a default on Sri Lanka’s $51 billion foreign debt and the Colombo Stock Exchange has suspended trading to prevent an anticipated market collapse.

Sri Lanka has turned to China and India for emergency loans to buy food and fuel.