Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been appointed to helm the crucial finance ministry, news agency AFP reported, quoting an official.
This comes amid an economic meltdown of a scale unseen since the country's financial crisis of 1948. Prices of essential commodities like rice, milk, and oil have skyrocketed.
The post of finance minister has been unstable since Basil Rajapaksa, the president's younger brother, was sacked in April. Following that, Ali Sabry, who was appointed as Sri Lanka's finance minister on 4 April, resigned after just one day in the Cabinet.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's office on Wednesday, 25 May, announced that Wickremesinghe had taken the post, two weeks after he was invited to form a unity government following his predecessor's resignation.
Mahinda Rajapaksa had resigned from the post of prime minister on 9 May, thereby, leading to the automatic dissolution of the Cabinet.
21 Cabinet ministers have so far been appointed on three occasions following the appointment of Wickremesinghe as the prime minister on 12 May.
Protests Due to Shortage of Essential Goods
Sri Lanka has seen weeks of public protests due to a shortage in essential supplies including food and medicines. Prices of essential commodities like rice, milk, and oil have skyrocketed.
The main cause is the shortage of foreign currency, which has led to a huge reduction in imports of essential items like petroleum, food, paper, sugar, lentils, medicines, and transportation equipment.
The roots of the shortage lie in the tourism industry's failure and the lack of enough FDI.
(With inputs from AFP.)
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