Every Second You Protest, We Are Losing Dollars: Sri Lankan PM Mahinda Rajapaksa Amid Economic Crisis

The government is working round-the-clock to overcome the economic crisis, Mahinda, the elder brother of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said.

Colombo: Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday said that every minute spent on streets by protesters deprives the cash-strapped country of precious dollars while assuring the people that his government is working round-the-clock to address their woes and appealed to protesters to end their agitation. Amidst a growing pressure on him to quit following the unprecedented economic crisis facing the island nation, the embattled leader addressed the nation in a bid to calm the agitating people who are protesting on the streets over lengthy power outages and shortage of gas, food and other essentials.

The government is working round-the-clock to overcome the economic crisis, Mahinda, the elder brother of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said. He also appealed to the protesters to end their anti-government agitation and said that every minute spent on streets deprives the country of dollar inflow. “We ended the war not to put the people of this country into this status, we constructed highways not to keep people in queues. We built ports not to idle oil ships in our ports until we find dollars to pay for them. We will make all efforts to overcome this crisis,” the PM said.

PM’s address to nation after Opposition Leader’s allegations

The address of the prime minister came hours after Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa alleged that poor economic policies of the government had contributed to the country’s economic downturn. He said the cost of living in the country is going from bad to worse due to the price increase of essential food items including medicine, milk powder, rice, sugar, dhal, wheat flour and items such as gas, diesel, kerosene oil and petrol.

The Opposition Leader said that people gave ample time to President Rajapaksa to fulfill their requirements, especially by reducing the increasing cost of living but neither the President nor his Cabinet ministers were able to fulfill their demands. The anti-government protests, which started on Saturday, continued to its third day on Monday.

(With inputs from agencies)