Sri Lanka Cricket owes state bodies more than $32.5 million

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is seeking government assistance to bail them out of debt running up to Rs730 million ($32.5m) to a state body for infrastructure development work carried out during the 2011 World Cup held in Sri Lanka.

SLC President Upali Dharmadasa was reported in 'The Island' (https://bit.ly/U97GK6) as saying that the exact amount of their debts was not known, but the cricket owed money to the State Engineering Corporation (SEC), State Development and Construction Corporation (SDCC) and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA).

He said payments were overdue for the infrastructure development work and that the SLC was negotiating with the government and SEC to which alone it owed Dh118m on how to settle the bills.

He was optimistic the matter would be sorted out, the report added.

Dharmadasa said that the development work carried out at Pallakele and Premadasa stadiums and the construction of the Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium at Sooriyawewa, Hambantota, for the 2011 World Cup, where 12 games were staged in Sri Lanka, had been a big boost for the ICC World Twenty20 Tournament held in Sri Lanka.
 
Minister of Housing, Construction, Common Amenities and Engineering Services Wimal Weerawansa said on Friday that the SLC owed the SEC Rs.730 million for the improvement of venues for the 2011 World Cup.

It confirmed the worst fears of many Sri Lankans that the country's richest sports body was mired in debt.

In a recent commentary on the popular islandcricket.lk website (https://bit.ly/RhRWFf), it's editor Hilal Suhaib wrote: "The International Cricket Council (ICC) was forced to take the unusual step of handing out an advance payment and a grant to SLC to help out with the costs for the ICC World Twenty this year. And at one point, the cricket board owed nearly two billion rupees to a Chinese company for the construction of the Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium, which was built for last year’s ODI World Cup. It is unclear how much of that debt has been settled more than a year after the World Cup."

SLC at one stage was struggling to pay even the wages of its contracted players.

Suhaib blamed incompetent administrators for dragging SLC into this mess.

He wrote: "That's largely due to dreadful decision–making by officials who don’t possess the qualifications to make decisions on matters that could potentially result in the loss of millions of dollars for the board. Competent administrators would not risk awarding the contract to organise the SLPL (Sri Lanka Premier League) to a company that was previously unknown, only founded in time to bid for the SLPL tender, or allow Basnahira Cricket Dundee — an Indian cricket fan community — and other obscure organisations to purchase SLPL teams. Officials with SLC's best interests at heart would not hand local broadcast rights for three years to Carlton Sports Network (CSN), which the secretary of SLC is the chief executive of, and that too just months after the station was launched; nor would they have been unable to stay within the given budget for the construction of World Cup 2011 stadia, which has left the board in millions of dollars in debt."

In fact the parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) in a report ‘Poor Accountability and Hazy Transactions’ at a number of state, banking and semi-state institutions, has questioned SLC Secretary Nishantha Ranatunga’s role as Carlton Sports Network CEO while holding the top executive’s job at the SLC.

"When the agreement between SLC and the CSN was signed, the SLC Secretary who also serves as CSN CEO is a matter which led to clear Conflict of Interest,” it said in an interim report.

Dharmadasa said he would obtain legal advice on Ranatunga’s dual role when COPE directs him to do so in writing.

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