SL plans to privatise airline amid crisis
Hindustan Times|May 17, 2022
The finance ministry says the country currently has only $25 million in usable foreign reserves
SL plans to privatise airline amid crisis

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's new prime minister on Monday proposed privatising the country's loss-making national airline as part of reforms aimed at solving the country's worst economic crisis in decades.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said in a message to the people that he plans to propose a special relief budget that will take the place of the development-oriented budget earlier approved for this year, He said it would channel funds previously allocated for infrastructure development to public welfare.

He said the country's financial health is so poor that the government has been forced to print money to pay the salaries of government workers and buy other goods and services.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed Wickremesinghe as prime minister last Thursday in a bid to quell the island nation's political and economic crisis. The president's brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, stepped down as prime minister on May 9 amid violence that left nine people dead and more than 200 wounded.

Protesters have demanded the powerful Rajapaksa family resign to take responsibility for leading the country into the economic crisis.

This story is from the May 17, 2022 edition of Hindustan Times.

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This story is from the May 17, 2022 edition of Hindustan Times.

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