Colombo: Sri Lanka On Thursday, 37 junior ministers, including the nephew of former President Gotabaya, were appointed Mahinda Rajapakseas President Ranilo Wickremesinghe The island went on a major expansion to provide a stable government to deal with the nation’s worst economic crisis ever.
Sri Lanka is going through its worst economic crisis since its independence in 1948, triggered by a severe shortage of foreign exchange reserves, leaving the country of 22 million people scrambling for essential commodities.
Most of the junior ministers or legislators appointed among the state-level ministers were from the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party.
Some included former President Maithripala Sirisena’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which had decided to stay away during government formation in July.
“The new Ministers of State were sworn in before the President at the President’s Secretariat,” the President’s Media Department said in a statement.
While MPs Ranjit Siambalapatia and Shehan Semasinghe were sworn in as ministers of state in the finance ministry, Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapakse’s nephew Shashindra Rajapakse, appointed to the irrigation ministry, were other notable inclusions.
Despite a flurry of appointments on Thursday, President Wickremesinghe’s dream of forming an all-party government to tackle the island nation’s worst economic crisis is still far from a reality.
As he presented the Interim Budget for 2022 in Parliament in his capacity as Finance Minister last month, Wickremesinghe said: “I reiterate the invitation to all parties represented in this Parliament to join an all-party government. Since this unprecedented situation is the responsibility of all of us, and hence the needs of the country need to be given priority.”
Wickremesinghe takes over after his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa After mass protests in July fled to Sri Lanka and then resigned.
Earlier this month, Sri Lanka secured an employee-level agreement for a bailout of USD 2.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF), even restructuring its debt with its creditors including China was an uphill task for the country.
Sri Lanka is going through its worst economic crisis since its independence in 1948, triggered by a severe shortage of foreign exchange reserves, leaving the country of 22 million people scrambling for essential commodities.
Most of the junior ministers or legislators appointed among the state-level ministers were from the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party.
Some included former President Maithripala Sirisena’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which had decided to stay away during government formation in July.
“The new Ministers of State were sworn in before the President at the President’s Secretariat,” the President’s Media Department said in a statement.
While MPs Ranjit Siambalapatia and Shehan Semasinghe were sworn in as ministers of state in the finance ministry, Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapakse’s nephew Shashindra Rajapakse, appointed to the irrigation ministry, were other notable inclusions.
Despite a flurry of appointments on Thursday, President Wickremesinghe’s dream of forming an all-party government to tackle the island nation’s worst economic crisis is still far from a reality.
As he presented the Interim Budget for 2022 in Parliament in his capacity as Finance Minister last month, Wickremesinghe said: “I reiterate the invitation to all parties represented in this Parliament to join an all-party government. Since this unprecedented situation is the responsibility of all of us, and hence the needs of the country need to be given priority.”
Wickremesinghe takes over after his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa After mass protests in July fled to Sri Lanka and then resigned.
Earlier this month, Sri Lanka secured an employee-level agreement for a bailout of USD 2.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF), even restructuring its debt with its creditors including China was an uphill task for the country.