CNN Exclusive: Sri Lanka's acting President says previous government was 'covering up facts' about financial crisis

Sri Lanka's acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said the country's previous administration was "covering up facts" about its crippling financial crisis.

Former leader Gotabaya Rajapaksa's government did not tell the truth, that Sri Lanka was "bankrupt" and "needed to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF)," Wickremesinghe told CNN from parliament in the nation's administrative capital Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte Monday.

"I would like to tell the people I know what they are suffering," he added. "We have gone back. We have to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. We don't need five years or 10 years. By the end of next year let's start stabilizing, and certainly by 2024 let's have a functioning economy which will start growing."