When then-Sri Lankan minister of justice Ali Sabry visited Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Monday last week, it was for talks amid an economic crisis that has brought thousands of protesters onto the streets and left the island nation short of fuel, medicine and power.
By the time Sabry left the meeting, he was finance minister, thrust into the center of a financial storm that would be hard calm.
“I was not ... ready for that when I went there,” Sabry said in an interview with Reuters at the weekend, giving the first insider account of a dramatic week of political maneuvering.
Photo: Reuters
“Normally I wear my jacket to go for any official function. I took oath even without my jacket, because I went for a discussion,” he said.
The country of 22 million people has been hit by crippling power cuts and other shortages. Foreign exchange reserves have plummeted to US$1.93 billion and debt payments several times that amount are looming.
People have taken to the streets calling for Rajapaksa and his family to quit. The president’s older brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, is prime minister.
Before Gotabaya Rajapaksa dissolved his cabinet, Sabry, 51, had been his trusted justice minister.
Even after accepting the new job, Sabry had doubts. About 24 hours later, amid questions about his suitability and concerns within his family over whether it was the right decision, he said he sent a resignation letter to the president.
“I’m also a human being. My family also matters to me,” Sabry said, seated in front of a wall of books at his law chambers in the commercial capital, Colombo.
For four days after his resignation offer, no other candidate stepped forward, and by Friday, he had resolved to go ahead, following further discussions with family, the president and officials, Sabry said.
On Friday, when Sabry rose to speak in parliament, a lawmaker asked what capacity he was talking in.
Sabry said that he was still finance minister.
“As I told ... parliament, what you need is not to be an economist. If that is the case, you need to be either a motor mechanic or a driver to run the transport ministry,” Sabry said, breaking into laughter.
Before the drama of the past few weeks, Sabry had enjoyed a 25-year career in law that had taken him to the top of the legal system.
From a family with deep roots in politics, Sabry has also had a long relationship with the Rajapaksas, particularly the president, whom he has represented in court.
Faced with the challenge of immediately finding US$3 billion to pay for essential goods that he described as “Herculean,” Sabry said he has the full backing of the president, the prime minister and his ruling party leaders.
He must also lead what are expected to be complicated negotiations with the IMF over a much-needed loan program.
Sabry said that he has confidence in a team of key officials, including a new central bank governor and treasury secretary, alongside an advisory committee.
“I’m willing to do this as long as it takes,” he said.
Sabry showed courage taking on a job that no one else appeared to want, said Udeeshan Jonas, chief strategist at Colombo-based investment bank CAL Group.
“He will have to be the person to take unpopular and difficult decisions. The economic reforms that Sri Lanka needs to make will not come easy,” Jonas said.
Some analysts said that the finance minister could be hamstrung by the public’s loss of confidence in the Rajapaksa family.
“Individuals cannot do much. The government has to take the right steps,” said Sirimal Abeyratne, professor of economics at the University of Colombo. “We can now see the light at the end of the tunnel, but nothing more than that.”
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS