Auditor General highlights financial mismanagement at Sri Lanka Cricket

December 26, 2010 (Island Cricket): Sri Lanka’s Auditor General has revealed irregular expenditure whilst auditing accounts belonging to Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC). Allowances paid out to SLC officials in 2009 for overseas travel is said to near Rs. 12 million ($107,991.36).

Secretary of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), Nishantha Ranatunga (L), pictured here watching the Sri Lanka cricket team taking part in the Asian Games 2010 in China recently. It is unclear if Ranatunga was invited for the games, or if SLC bore the financial cost of Ranatunga's travel. The Auditor General has revealed SLC expenses pertaining to travel allowances and cost relating to the travel of SLC officials near Rs. 12 million in 2009 alone. © K Perera.“Twenty-eight officers of Sri Lanka Cricket had visited foreign countries on official matters and a sum of Rs. 11,958,217 had been paid to them by SLC excluding the payments of ICC/ACC during the year as foreign travel expenses,” the Auditor General was quoted as saying by the Daily Mirror newspaper in Sri Lanka.

“The payment of allowances for those officers had been made based on the number of days approved for the relevant overseas visit by SLC without considering the actual number of days required to stay abroad," the Auditor General said.

According to the Auditor General, he is unable to scrutinise the expenses further due to the lack of travel itineraries, official invitations, embarkation and disembarkation records, quotations, reports highlighting the benefits of such trips and other related documents, which SLC has failed to provide the Auditor General’s Department with.

Furthermore, the audit has uncovered unreasonably large payouts for transportation.

“The Auditor had observed that ‘unbelievable’ charges per kilometre had been paid to transport goods from Colombo to various cricket grounds,” the Daily Mirror reported.

The period in question falls under the tenure of interim committee Chairman, Somachandra de Silva and Secretary, Nishantha Ranatunga. The latter has been accused by the local media of making numerous unwarranted trips overseas.

Serving as Secretary of the interim committee, Ranatunga, the brother of World Cup winning captain, Arjuna Ranatunga, is understood to be the individual behind the decision making at SLC, despite the presence of a committee.

He has represented SLC in ICC meetings held overseas in recent times and has become the sole face of SLC internationally, on occasions even replacing the former CEO, Duleep Mendis, with himself for meetings when the CEO was invited.

It is unclear at this time if any action will be taken against SLC officials for failing to provide documents requested by the Auditor General, or what the outcome of the audit by the Auditor General’s Department will be in the event corruption is proven.