• What is needed today is a national consensus, not a national government 
• We have to resolve the current situation

By Yohan Perera   

Former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday rejected the idea of forming a national government and toppling the present government saying what is needed today is a common consensus on a national plan to avoid Sri Lanka becoming another Greece.   

 “Changing the government is not the solution.We have to resolve the current situation. If don’t do it and play politics, there won’t be any country left for us. First and foremost, there should be an agreement between the political parties on resolving the current economic situation. What is needed today is a national consensus, not a national government. There should be an iron framework for the country to move forward. This is the reality considering the country’s situation today,” Wickremesinghe told a UNP membership drive meeting in Colombo yesterday.  “Sri Lanka will have to settle one billion dollars by June this year. We have only $ 600 million at the moment. What the Central Bank claims to be reserves are not really what it is claimed to be. They are loans which have been borrowed from India and China. Sri Lanka’s current total foreign debt services are $ 50 billion. The major portion of it has to be settled before 2029. Sri Lanka’s total debt is Rs 19,000 billion. Our Gross Domestic Product last year was Rs 15,000 billion. We will have to borrow foreign currency to settle these debts. Therefore, the total foreign debts will increase. Sri Lanka’s total debts will also increase and will be two times larger the GDP in the future. This is the issue which the country is facing,” he added.   

“Sri Lanka borrowed from India to purchase oil. The agreement for this was delayed. It would have been possible to bring down 15 shipments of oil if we had signed the agreement earlier. Fuel prices have increased because of the Ukraine-Russia war. Now it is possible only to bring down only seven shipments. We don’t have fertilizer for the Yala season. Russia is the leading producer of fertilizer. We cannot purchase from there now. There is no fertilizer in Brazil and in California. These are the grave issues we are facing. People have lost expectations. The middle class has fallen, Youth want to migrate. We cannot blame them. Sri Lanka will end up like Greece if no solution is found to these issues,” he said.   

• What the Central Bank claims to be reserves are not really what it is claimed to be