Sri Lanka president flees to Maldives ahead of expected resignation

Maldives has some of the worlds most expensive hotels. Great escape.

You cant escape from Karma. Give us our stolen money. The Rajapaksa family are thieves. A family that stole people's property and donations.

Whenever slimy heads of state leave office and flee their country, the rest of the world should hunt down all their financial assets and return them to the people. Their forced retirement shouldn't be cozy after screwing over millions of people.

The IMF are also responsible for this mess!

The IMF are also responsible for this mess!

No, that is not the case here. Sri Lanka owes China some $61 billion but has not borrowed from the IMF. They are trying to arrange a loan from the IMF but without national leadership or a function government at any level it is not possible.

Sri Lanka's problems are traceable to four things. Number one, the government subsidizes fuel and food. Instead of private firms setting a market price for their goods and using their revenues to buy goods on the open market, the government buys at market prices and sells to local suppliers at artificially low subsidized prices. To do that the government needs sources of revenue. Those revenue sources were tea and tourism.

Terrorists attacks just before the pandemic chased all the tourists away from Sri Lanka and the pandemic kept tourism closed, depriving the government of that revenue source. An ill advised requirement to use organic farming led to the collapse of agriculture and cut tea exports drastically, cutting the other major source of government revenue. Aside from buying food and fuel the government also has to make payments on their loans from China. Debt payments used up the last of their reserves and led to the current situation. Can't blame this one on the IMF, though I fully understand the knee jerk urge to do so.