Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has dropped three members of his family from the Union Cabinet amidst the ongoing economic crisis in the country.
The new cabinet retains Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister (PM) of the country, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
However, PM Mahinda's son Namal, who headed the sports ministry previously, has been relieved from his duties. Meanwhile, his brothers Chamal and Basil have also been relinquished from their posts.
The reshuffled cabinet has been put into place after the previous one resigned a couple of weeks ago owing to allegations of nepotism and corruption.
Several lawmakers have raised voices against the establishment and quite a few opposition parties have rejected invitations from the administration to form a unity government to sail through this crisis.
The opposition parties have stated their intentions of overthrowing the incumbent government via a no-confidence motion in the next few weeks.
Colombo is seeking around $3-4 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to quell its balance-of-payments (BoP) crisis. Ali Sabry, the newly-appointed finance minister, is in Washington already and will hold talks with the IMF over the same.
The Lankan government has already run out of foreign currency to import fuel as the country deals with record inflation and lengthy energy blackouts.
Comments ↓
An Appeal...
Dear Reader,
As you are no doubt aware, Swarajya is a media product that is directly dependent on support from its readers in the form of subscriptions. We do not have the muscle and backing of a large media conglomerate nor are we playing for the large advertisement sweep-stake.
Our business model is you and your subscription. And in challenging times like these, we need your support now more than ever.
We deliver over 10 - 15 high quality articles with expert insights and views. From 7AM in the morning to 10PM late night we operate to ensure you, the reader, get to see what is just right.
Becoming a Patron or a subscriber for as little as Rs 1200/year is the best way you can support our efforts.