World News: Sri Lanka’s surprise finance minister has a mountain to climb – Gulf Digital News

World News: Sri Lanka’s surprise finance minister has a mountain to climb – Gulf Digital News

COLOMBO: When former justice minister Ali Sabry visited Sri Lanka's president last Monday, it was for talks amid an economic crisis that has brought thousands of protesters on to the street and left the island nation short of fuel, medicine and power.

By the time Sabry left the meeting with Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to his surprise he was finance minister, thrust into the centre of a financial storm that will not be easy to calm.

"I was not ... ready for that when I went there," Sabry told Reuters in an interview over the weekend, giving the first insider account of a dramatic week of political manoeuvring.

"Normally I wear my jacket to go for any official function. I took oath even without my jacket, because I went for a discussion and then, I had to take that (oath)."

The country of 22 million people has been hit by crippling power cuts, sometimes lasting 13 hours, and other shortages. Foreign exchange reserves have plummeted to $1.93 billion and debt payments several times that amount are looming.

Ordinary people have taken to the streets in recent weeks calling for Rajapaksa and his family to quit. The president's elder brother, Mahinda, is prime minister.

Before Gotabaya Rajapaksa dissolved his