ECONOMYNEXT — Presidential candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake has blamed Sri Lanka’s 2022 financial crisis on incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe, largely absolving former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa whose policy missteps Dissanayake attributed to ignorance.
Speaking at an election rally, Dissanayake claimed that Wickremesinghe was the author of the crisis while Rajapaksa had made a few mistakes out of sheer ignorance. Dissanayake also claimed pity for Rajapaksa.
“They ended oil, gas, milk powder, fuel and electricity supply to this country. Ranil Wickremesinghe is one of the main parties responsible for this though he is hiding today. Who became the accused party in the end? Gotabaya. He was there for just two and a half years. Sad (pau).
“Though he made a few mistakes out of ignorance, the major, serious economic assassins were Ranil and company. This crisis happened because of a few things Gotabya did without understanding (notherena),” said Dissanayake.
“The author of the crisis was Ranil Wickremesinghe. And who gave his neck for it? Gotabaya. Too bad for him. Honestly, I feel bad for him sometimes for having to put up with this job (ahaka yana karumekata atha gahanna unaa),” he added.
Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ruled in November 2023 that ex-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his brothers and former finance ministers Mahinda and Basil Rajapaksa, then Secretary to the President P B Jayasundera, then Treasury Secretary S R Attygalle, and then Central Bank Governors W D Lakshman and Ajit Nivard Cabraal had infringed the fundamental rights of the people by helping drive the country to default.
Various experts have said since and before this ruling that costly policy errors by the Rajapaksa administration triggered the 2022 financial crisis.
Dissanayake, who is a front runner and a hot favourite in Sri Lanka’s presidential elections scheduled for Saturday September 21, however, claimed that the crisis was in fact directly attributable to incumbent President Wickremesinghe, whose International Monetary Fund (IMF)-backed reform programme has done much to reverse the damage.
“Then Gotabaya left and Ranil came. What did he do then? He decided to default on debt repayment. That saved some dollars. With that brought oil, gas,” said the leader of the leftist National People’s Power (NPP).
Sri Lanka announced that it was defaulting on debt repayment in April 2022, nearly a month before Wickremesinghe was sworn in as prime minister.
“Now what does he say? Without him, these won’t happen, I say without him there would be no such crisis. He created the crisis,” repeated Dissanayake.
“Now RW says vote him again to build the country. We say ‘Ranil, enough building the country, step aside. We will build this’,” he said.
“On Setpember 21 the people of this country will definitely send them aside. Stay aside without bothering us,” he added. (Colombo/Sep18/2024)