From the heart of sri lankas capital, colombo. Im outside the president ial office, and today, its Pristine Exterior is well guarded. But six months ago, angry antigovernment protesters stormed this building, as well as the president ial palace, forcing the president to flee the country. They were angry at just how desperate their Economic Situation had become, and they blamed Government Corruption and mismanagement for it. Sri lanka is saddled with heavy debt, soaring inflation and impossibly high food and fuel costs. And its become something of a bellwether for other lower income countries. World leaders are looking to see whether sri lanka can overcome its worst economic crisis for more than 70 years, and whether its experience marks a growing trend of civil unrest. Applause. Welcome to the magnificent National Museum here in colombo, which charts the history of this beautiful island, as it marks 75 years of independence from britain, and weve got a top panel here from sri lanka who are going to be answering questions from our local audience. Let me tell you whos In The Hot Seat for this edition of global questions. Ali sabry is sri lankas foreign minister. Until very recently, he was minister of finance, and hence played a leading role in International Negotiations for an economic bailout. At the end of last year, he held high level talks in washington about the economic and political crisis. Harini amarasuriya is a Member Of Parliament for the National Peoples opposition party. Shes a former lecturer at university and is a vocal critic of the government. And Dushni Weerakoon is one of sri lankas leading economists. She was a member of the board of the central bank and is a consultant to various bodies such as the world bank, shes also Executive Director of the Institute Of Policy Studies of sri lanka. Thats our panel. Welcome to you all. Applause. And remember, you too can join the conversation. Lots of questions to get through, so lets go to our first one from ranmini ariawanshe. Ranmini. How can sri lanka survive in a Global Crisis like this . Will this not lead to more civil unrest . Foreign minister ali sabry. Thank you very much for that question. Its a very difficult time for all of us. I hoped that i had a ready made answer for that, you dont have it, its not easy to be frank with that. Internationally, prices have gone up, rupee has depreciated, particularly the energy, petroleum, coal, 35 of what we are relying on for our electricity, grain and all those things, but what we are trying to do is to control the inflation, curb the demand so that the inflation is controlled. I think we have seen some positivity, 95 of the inflation which was in june july had come down to 70 or 60 , that the food and the general inflation has also come down from 85 to 50s. So, therefore, ithink there is no quick fix, but the only way out is to increase the export, reduce the import, preserve the dollars and repurposed it for import of important items, which is necessary for day to day movement. Alright. And, ranminis second part of her question was could it lead to more civil unrest . Are we going to see millions of people out On The Streets again . Yeah. Hopefully, i dont see that, but i feel that there is a little bit of progress, i think you will agree with me, compared to what as this initial visual shows, we have we dont have the full queues any longer, and that also been because we introduced a qr code, as a result of which, the 40 of the demand has been cut off, and thats a result of we are serving a lot of foreign currency, which we have been repurposing for. All right. So the answer is no, youre not going to see people On The Streets again . I dont think so. Im optimistic that we could get out of it. Lets see what a member of the opposition thinks. Harini. Well, i think theres a lot. More that needs to happen before we can be guaranteed that people will not get On The Streets because the key problems that led to the crisis| have not been resolved. We talked about sabry talked about the full crisis, but what we are seeing now the lack of queues is not because theres a sufficient supply of fuel, its because fuel has been restricted. So this cannot go on indeterminately, there has to be some resolution for this, and also, what i see is that this is not just an economic crisis. This is a political crisis. When people got On The Streets last year, people were demanding a change in the political culture. I they were demanding a change in the political system. Well, they saw off the president , didnt they . Imean, rajapaksa. Yes, thats part one. Went to singapore and resigned by e mail from there. Laughs thats part one. They got rid of someone they didnt like. But have we replaced the person e didnt like with a person that we have chosen . We havent. Dushni weerakoon, your response to that question . Well, i think sri lanka is i mean, we are through the worst of the crisis, but i think that we are certainly not Out Of The Woods yet. If the economic downturn is prolonged and recessionary conditions drag on, there is a sense that peoples lives are not improving, their livelihoods and their basic sort of Living Standards are not going to see much improvement over the next two to three years. So it can lead to a sense of frustration, and i think its quite right that this is not only an economic crisis, it is also a political crisis loss of faith in governance and our political institutions. So there has to be some sense of momentum, that the problems have been recognised and some changes are coming. 0therwise, what would happen . Otherwise i think a sense of frustration can spill over into a repeat of what we saw. Thank you very much indeed. Lets go to our second question. Anoka abeyrathne, your question, please. So, how can corruption, which is the leading reason for why the country is where it is now, be curbed to ensure sound policies and governance . 0oh, anokas sticking out her head there, isnt she . So, we know about all the external factors that have gone on, but anokas question is that the internal factors, principally corruption, is the culprit. Lets go to you first, harini. Yeah, i think thats the key issue. If you look at the protests last year, one of the key. Demands of people was give our stolen money back and all those who were. Responsible for corruption accountable. So, addressing that is. Critical, but that requires a political change, a political reform, and thats the point| i made earlier as well if we see this purely in terms of an economic crisis, j that would be missing the big picture. This is a political crisis, and the decisions and choices that politicians have i made led to this crisis, and those politicians have to be held accountable. For the decisions they made and the consequences and the suffering that people have had to undergo as a result. So unless that accountability is taken care of, i think we will never be able to really resolve this crisis and, in that, corruption is key. 0k, just everybody here in the audience in sri lanka is aware of whats been going on, butjust give a quick couple of lines to our audience out there when you said stolen money. What do you mean exactly . Well, during the protests last| year, one of the key demands of the people, of the protesters was give our stolen money back that was one of the big slogans. Yeah, sure. That led that was from the idea that people had that the economic crisis that they were experiencing. Yeah, but i mean, how were these are you talking about misappropriated funds. Misappropriation. Economic mismanagement. Wastage. Backhanders. Excessive privileges that people in power enjoy, backroom deals, commissions all of these issues. And this has been going on for a very long time. This has been going on for. Years, and thats why i think its also important to recognise that this is not just about covid or. The last three years. This is something that is systemic. I all right. Ali sabry. Yeah, corruption is another emblematic problem, but then we have, by the 21st amendment, have restored the independent councils, we are in the process of developing that, and then by that, we have recognised the anticorruption convention, and also, the Anticorruption Law will come into the place. But corruption is one of the key demand, and very popular one, but to be honest, thats not the only thing. We have an extra large size Public Service of 1. 6 Million People, which works out to 16 1, whereas india has 177 1, which we cant account for. 86 of our last years revenue went only for payment of salaries, so you cant run a country like that. Out of 70 of our entirety of the budget this year went for loan payment and Loan Interest repayments, so its easy to say that the corruption alone, itsjust one point, there are massive reforms which are necessary. But it is a factor . Of course it is a factor. Youre saying its one amongst a few, but what tangible actions and mechanisms are being implemented to ensure that you have that accountability of funds in the country . Yeah. We are looking at an Anticorruption Law in the style of hong kong to give further power to the independent commissions of corruption and bribery, so that more prosecutions can take place. Harini wants to Say Something to you, ali sabry. Yes. Say it to him, not to me youre looking at me laughs but i think the issue here is that corruption, as weve understood,. Its systemic here, right, and its notjust a case of. Its about holding i people accountable. This government has been in. Power for three years already. Three years now . 2. 5, three years. Where is It Accountability . What has really happened even when theyve been i in power, right . And what about the | ongoing corruption . There have been instances right now, as we speak, i of corruption going on. Minister also spoke you also spoke about the bloated to the Public Sector. Who is responsible for that . Who hired those people . Were going to come to that. Applause. Im so sorry, ali sabry, minister, but they like what harini is saying and you didnt get any applause for that answer. But, anyway, lets see what dushni has to say. Dushni, your response to the question about corruption. I tend to agree with what the minister said to the extent that corruption is one of the sort of, you know, manifestations of the broader issue of loss of accountability and weakening of institutions that weve had, and i think we need to we can have certain structures and places in place, but i think one of the biggest areas or reforms that people are demanding is actually in the political leadership, because corruption has not sprung on us overnight, and the economic crisis did not spring up overnight either. This has been successive governments over the last few decades where we have persistently seen institutions being weakening. So theres no quick fix. All right. Now, im going to take the next two questions together because they both ask something thats related. So lets go first with thanuki goonesinghe. Thanuki. How important does the panel Think Welfare Reforms will be in the coming months to support those most affected by the cost of living crisis . 0k, thank you, and lets go to maheesha weerasinghe. A nutritious meal for children and the general population i as a whole has been. Absent for a long time. What are the immediate steps that have been taken that would be successful. Even in the long run . Dushni, i mean, two questions there one is about sort of Emergency Welfare for people who are in a desperate situation right now. I mean, people are sort of choosing about whether they should eat, whether their children should eat, which child should go to school, which child shouldnt go to school. I mean, you know, it really is a dire situation, and what can be done in the long run . Well, ithink i mean, there has not been a disruption to sri lankas Welfare Schemes related to schoolchildren. There is a free midday meal, schooling is accessible to all at no cost. The issue is that weve had significant high Food Inflation in this country, running at over 90 . So whatever midday meals were being provided by the government, you are not able to provide that same meal now, because the cost has almost doubled. And, unfortunately, given the fact that we are in an economic crisis and the government needs to cut back on expenditures means there isnt that amount of funding there to top up what we should have topped up by now. So i think all of this means we are relying on multilateral agencies to provide some funding, but in the long term, we need to get all of the imf programmes, all of that tightened up so that budgetary support comes to scale these up, otherwise it will continue to be a big problem. 0k, harini amarasuriya, i mean, the United Nations is really sounding the alarm bells, you know, theyre saying that half of the population in sri lanka could really fall into poverty. So theres a huge problem with targeting, and with l effectiveness of existing Welfare Programmes. I that is also due to heavy politicisation of welfare i programmes where governments that come in to power tend to provide the welfare based on political affiliation ratherl than actual need. So that has become a major burden on the Welfare Programmes in general. All right. Minister sabry, your response to the question . Yeah. One of the conditions of the imf programme is also to roll over a social protection net to see the most vulnerable there and, of course, the Midday Meal Programme is going on, but generally, about more than 3 million families have been covered. But i do agree there are some verifications need to be done. There are some people who have already been graduated from this project, but still getting it, there are some who have been left out that need to come. There is a new programme, which is going on, along with the world bank, in order to identify that and upgrade that so that you. But time is coming out, isnt it, minister . I mean, people are really very hungry right now, and the government is, it seems, virtually on the verge of bankruptcy. I mean, even the president said a few months ago, president wickremesinghe, that trying to find 1 million was a bit of a challenge. Of course, but if you look at it, about 700 million worth of us dollar worth of funding came in from the multilateral agencies, and larger part of it, about us 350 million, were directed towards the Social Security net, and that is how we have been met. Of course, we all tend to agree there is no two word about it, we are not Out Of The Woods, people are suffering, but if you look at the march and the may, people were told that we will starve in september, starve in october. That had not happened because a lot of funding was put in to fertilise that. Yeah, but it might happen it might happen, right . It might happen. It has happened. There are people going hungry as we speak, so its not as if we are Out Of The Woods. I mean, we do get. Of course we are not Out Of The Woods. Reports from schools of Children Fainting during a School Assemblyl because they go to school hungry. Its also not just about filling your stomach. L its about nutrition, and thats the real issues, whether they are getting nutritious food, whether| theyre having access to nutritious food. I so there really needs to bei some emergency response, and that needs to happen. And you dont see that . Not enough, not on the scale that is required. 0k. Thank you for that. Lets go to our next question. Talal rafi, your question, please. Sri lanka has one of the largest Public Sectors in the world around 1. 6 Million People for a population of 22 million, and according to a minister, 86 of Government Revenue goes to paying salaries and pensions. So this is definitely unsustainable. So how can we reduce this . Ali sabry, i mean, if you include the defence forces, the army in sri lanka is huge and, you know, as the question has just said, weve seen various figures between 70 and 80 of National Spending goes into paying salaries. Thats insupportable, isnt it . Yeah. The last year, it went 86 of it. Right now, it had come down to 65 because the revenue has gone up because of the. Ok, but still very high. Very, very high, we all tend to agree. But the problem is some of my friends in the party goes into the university, drag down the people to the street, not get them to study, and they once they come back, they are not employable. When they are not employable, you force them to get the governmentjob, they organise themselves. Applause. They organise themselves an unemployed graduate union, they want to fix the Public Sector, Public Sector is bloated. So these are challenges, but this is not a time to point fingers at each other. All of us have to be blamed on this. Because 1971, the price in 1988 � 90 uprising, all have contributed to this. Nobody is free, none of them are. They are trying to say that theyre a paragon of virtue. No, thats not the case they are also responsible, my party is also responsible, all the parties are responsible for what we have today, 75 years. It is the moment of truth. We all must be honest to admit that and deal with it. Applause. Harini. I think thats a really callous response to the situation i that we are in right now. People are not getting On The Streets because they choose to get On The Streets. Theyre getting On The Streets because there are actual problems. I think its a very glib answer to say that its the Educationj Sector thats to blame for the poor economy| in this country. The economy is the response that the economy needs i to produce enoughjobs, i the economy needs to be resilient enough to absorb those who are coming out| of the university system. We do not have that. And people are getting On The Streets and this very government, including the president , ranil. Wickremesinghe, was quite happy to see students On The Streets before he became president of this country, and now, i students have become enemy number one. I thats not fair. Applause. He has to remember how he got to the position that he is. Hes an unelected president and he got to that position. Because of the protests on the street. So, now to blame students i for what is happening is really not taking responsibility for the conditions that created a situation that led i people to the streets. Just remind people Ranil Wickremesinghe was Prime Minister at the time, when Gotabaya Rajapaksa left office injuly. He then became president , and a lot of people in sri lanka believe he obviously does not have a mandate to be as president. But how does this relate to the question that was asked by talal about how you can reduce the bloated size of the Public Sector . Exactly. It has to be sorry, harini, please, go ahead. Youre being very polite with each other now. Laughs. No, we are polite. Shes my colleague the Public Sector certainly. Iwe. Our position is the publicl sector needs to be strengthened strengthened doesnt mean expansion or bloating, and if you look at why the Public Sector has been bloated and if you look at in which sectors its been bloated, its in areas, in resources where its people who are really unproductive, whove been chucked into the Public Sector. There are lots of vacancies in areas that actually needj to be filled. Ive got to bring dushni, youve got to break up this bilateral at the side here. Dushni, your response . I mean, ithink sri lanka has a Public Sector thats far too large. There is no dispute about that. The reason why its grown in size is also political because each government that comes in has they come under pressure to absorb more and more people into the Public Sector. Some of it is unemployed graduates, but a larger chunk of it is also politicians providing employment to their supporters through the institutions that they control. Applause. Thank you. Now, yes, so thats the problem. Were running out of time, so lets go to our next question. Your question, please. So, my question to you is what are your thoughts on which countries sri lanka should look at aligning themselves economically in order to stem the cost of living crisis, given sri lankas current precarious financial predicament, as well as for future growth and sustainability . Dushni, you kick off on that one. I think if you look at long Term Economic interests, my sense as an economist is that we are better aligned to the asian region because asia has been identified as a centre of growth for the next two to three decades. Most of our investment is coming from asia, most of the Technology Transfer is coming from asia, most of our imports are coming from asia, our exports are of course headed to the west. But we need to diversify our export base, find new markets, and i think for us, Finding New Markets will also be mostly in the asian region. All right. So thats my short answer. Short answer there. Very quick answer to that one. I mean, china, india, japan big countries that give a lot of money to sri lanka. I agree with dushni because we need to work with everybody, but then asia, this is the century of asia for at least the next two, three decades, so we have to work with them. India is growing, you have to partner with them, integrate with them, and have that opportunity to use it. So as far as china is concerned, we need to look at it, how to export more than now we are importing. Very quickly on china, harini maybe you could address this. A lot of people are unhappy about the fact that china builds these infrastructure projects, but at hugely inflated costs, and then theres this debt thats built up and they buy the family jewels, like the port. Well, i think thats part of the earlier issue we spoke about of corruption. Yeah. But actually, the biggest. Problem with indebtedness is not really china. Its the International Sovereign bonds, which have been which we borrowed on private privately. So thats the real problem, not so much the bilateral loans that weve taken. Thank you. Final question. Your question, please. Thank you, zeinab. A lot of sri lankans are migrating and are now on the verge of migrating. As much as it does help generate Foreign Exchange to the country, in the long run, we are losing top talent and prospective entrepreneurs. Also, start ups and many other various skills that could lift the country to a much better state imaginable. What reforms and policies can we adapt to identify and retain young talent . Ok, very important question, but im afraid we cant really go into reforms and policies, but it is a sad State Of Affairs more than 300,000 people left the country last year thats the highest figure ever. Very quickly, dushni. I mean, we are losing talent that we really cant afford to because sri lanka is a rapidly ageing demography, we need our young people, and the only way that we can keep them back is to give them a sense of some material, systemic change thats going to come to the country on the political front, as well as on the economic front. If we dont have the confidence, theyll keep leaving. 0k. Harini . People are leaving because theyve lost hope and they dont think that they can build a future in this country, and i that needs to change. People have to have hope, people have to have confidence that they can carve a life out. For themselves in this country, and for that, there needs to be political change. I minister ali sabry final point. Yeah, i feel there has to be deep economic reform, as well as structural and political reforms, because although we say that theres a lot of people are gone, yes, 312,000, but even in 2014, 304,000 people left, they will go for a better standard. So what the alternative is is to provide an opportunity here in sri lanka so that we can retain them and there is opportunity for them. But even in india, in the early 80s, people started to go. Now they have come back and they have started coming back. Im hopeful, if we all Work Together without this partisan approach, we can rebuild our country. Foreign minister ali sabry, harini amarasuriya, opposition mp, and economist Dushni Weerakoon, thank you very much indeed. Thats all from this edition of global questions on whether sri lanka is managing to put a lid on the political discontent, which was triggered by that economic crisis. And i hope weve also discussed some of the Lessons Learned for other countries beset by similar problems. Remember we are the programme that brings you the trend lines behind the headlines. From me, zeinab badawi, from here in colombo, thank you to you, whatever youre watching or listening to this programme. For me and the rest of the global questions team, goodbye. Applause hello. Our forecasts are very much being about the rain so far this january. Were not even halfway through the month and some spots have already seen close to a month and a halfs worth of rainfall. Cardiff, for example. In the days ahead, though, it will be relatively dry, but its going to turn much colder. Things have already started to become chillier across the uk through saturday as weve started to pick up a northwesterly airstream. Late sunday into monday though, into a direct Northerly Airstream and arctic air, we all go. We still though have a lot of water lying about and numerous Flood Warnings in place. So do keep up to date with those on our website. But instead of rain, its going to be looking out for snow, i suspect in the days ahead. That will be our major forecasting headache. Were going to have this little Weather System drifting its way south overnight, the centre of our low pressure up here to the northeast, quite windy around that low, gales for the south west of scotland, to the north of northern ireland, wintry showers feeding in to scotland, maybe even down to lower levels. And out of this system, perhaps a little bit of snow across snowdonia for the lake district, perhaps across the pennines, but generally still with the strength of the wind, its not quite cold enough for us to see a widespread frost across england and wales. So itll mostly be showers of rain we see on that little Weather System as it trickles its way south through Sunday Morning and tends to fade out actually. So i think quite a lot of sunshine to come across england and wales away from western coasts through the day on sunday. Some more snow showers for the far north west of scotland. A chillier day for all. The winds actually ease back through the day, but highs, sixes and sevens to the south of the uk, some parts of scotland away from the coast, temperatures will not get above freezing. And then overnight sunday into monday, you can see a Weather System there rolling through close to the south coast. The cold air at this stage is digging its way south. As the two come together, there is uncertainty where we may see perhaps something a little bit more significant in the way of snow for first thing on monday, perhaps across the downs, the weald of kent. Please stay tuned because we will be able to pin that down closer to the time. Same story though, monday night into tuesday, that big low up there to the northeast. But these little features running around to the bottom of it, making it very difficult to pinpoint exactly where we could see wintry weather in terms of the timing in our forecast, but colder certainly for all this week. This is bbc news. Im Lukwesa Burak with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. Russia launches missile strikes across ukraine. One hit an Apartment Block in the city of dnipro killing at least five people. Clearing operations are ongoing and will continue throughout the night. How many people are still under the rubble is still unknown. Iran has executed British Iranian dual national Alireza Akbari on charges of Spying For The Uk which hed denied. Britains Prime Minister calls it, a callous and cowardly act. A further 5 classified documents have been found at the delaware home of us president , joe biden. And in the uk a 7 Year Old Girl is in a Critical Condition in hospital, following a shooting in north london. Three women were also injured