PM told the foreign media that the previous administration was responsible for the current crisis

Sri Lanka’s prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has told Sky News that “the last administration is to blame” for the country’s current crisis.

Protesters have clashed with police in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, as people demanded the resignation of the president and new prime minister. Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that the last administration “is to blame” for the current situation in his country as they “ran down the economy”. “We have come to a point where we are bankrupt - which has never happened to Sri Lanka before,” he said in an interview with Sky News following his controversial appointment last week.

He added: “I suggested that after Sri Lanka passes the 21st amendment, the country should restore the original 19th amendment strengthening parliament - strengthening the powers of the prime minister. Meanwhile, the recent unrest across the country has been sparked amid the country’s worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1948, which has been blamed on a combination of COVID, rising oil prices and populist tax cuts by the president and his brother, until recently the prime minister.

The prime minister went on to say that the country faces a possibility of a food crisis due to the lack of fertiliser. Other fuel, cooking gas, medicine and foods are in short supply forcing people to stay in long lines to buy the limited stocks. “We are feeling the rise in the price of fuel - and we know it will go higher,” he said. “Therefore from about August onwards, there is a possibility of a food crisis in Sri Lanka.