Sri Lanka Cricket officials siphoned off as much as 11,000 million US dollars to foreign banks from income gained by the sale of television rights for international matches played in the country, the former head of the Committee that probed financial misuse in the public sector revealed in an interview.
Sunil Handunnetti who headed the Committee on Public Enterprise (COPE) told a local television station that a computer gimmick done to make it look as authentic according to the address of Sri Lanka Cricket was all that was needed to transfer funds to the bank accounts of some officials running the administration of cricket.
Handunnetti did not specify the period in which the shady activities took place or the names of officials running cricket at the time, but it was likely the rip-off in question happened some five years ago when he was the chairman of COPE that probed corruption in public institutions.
He said that COPE, which was set up by Parliament, was on the verge of finalizing the probe Report that documented the transfer of funds from Sri Lanka to foreign banks when Parliament was dissolved.
“They (Sri Lanka Cricket) used two almost similar internet addresses one srilankacricket.lk and the other srilankacricket.sl in a subtle way to hoodwink any peers to transfer these funds to foreign banks that they (SLC officials) owned overseas and one bank account was in England,” said Handunnetti.
He said it was now very unlikely that what should have been done by way of the Probe at the time will not be possible at this juncture.
“This whole process was illegal the way they (SLC officials) transferred money out of the country and that was the very reason why there was a need for a forensic audit report which was thwarted when Parliament was dissolved.
“Most of the money they (SLC) earn comes through the sale of broadcast rights and not from prize money for the team,” said Handunnetti.
