Sri Lanka's debt crisis
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2022
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why is Sri Lanka facing its biggest economic crisis for decades? It's left the population enduring months of power cuts, while essentials are in short supply. How has the country's debt spiralled out of control and what will a debt default mean for ordinary people? We hear from protestors on the street who are demanding a change of government, and how an IT entrepreneur is grappling with power cuts. Plus, Shanta Devarajan, a former chief economist at the World Bank who will be negotiating with the International Monetary Fund on behalf of Sri Lanka, tells us what the talks will involve.
Presenter: Rahul Tandon Producer: James Graham
Photo: Sri Lankan protestors in Colombo, April 2022. Credit: Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today on Business Daily with me, Rahul Tandon, what's gone wrong with the Sri Lankan economy? |
| 0:06.9 | We hear how it's affecting the lives of people in the country and why so many of them are protesting. |
| 0:13.2 | People can't afford their next meal. That is the saddest and the most dire state that any country could get to. |
| 0:21.2 | So how did the country get into so much debt it owes more than $50 billion and how's it |
| 0:26.3 | going to pay it off? We'll hear from one of those appointed by the president to sort it out. |
| 0:31.1 | The alternative is to undertake a negotiation with all the creditors, |
| 0:38.0 | there's no way that Sri Lanka is going to be able to pay back |
| 0:40.8 | all the debt in the time frame that is scheduled to pay back. |
| 0:48.4 | For the past few weeks, Sri Lankans have been out on the streets of their country, |
| 0:57.9 | calling for their president Gottabaya Rajapaksa to resign. |
| 1:02.2 | For many, this is the biggest economic crisis the country has faced since independence. |
| 1:08.9 | There's no petrol. There's no diesel. Kids can't sit their exams because there's no paper, |
| 1:14.6 | and there's no power for 12 hours a day. How much worse do we want it to get? |
| 1:17.6 | People can't afford their next meal. That is the saddest and the most dire state that any country could get to. |
| 1:25.6 | They have robbed everything from us. |
| 1:29.8 | They have robbed the basic rights of the people. |
| 1:32.9 | We don't have electricity for 17 long hours. |
| 1:37.4 | No medicine, hospitals are closed because we don't have medicine. |
| 1:42.4 | Many people have been posting their frustrations online. |
| 1:44.1 | Let's hear from one of them. I'm 89 years old. |
| 1:47.0 | And for the last so many 89 years, I have not gone through this misery. |
| 1:53.2 | Every time in the night when the lights go off, I cry. |
... |
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