With just a solitary Olympic medal in 75 years the custodians of Sri Lanka’s Olympic sports have had a field day with some of its office bearers going places and others choosing to turn a blind eye for reasons best known to them that some may argue amounts to aiding and abetting shady activities.
The most outrageous part was that so called elected officials running what is known as the National Olympic Committee (NOC) are allowed to carry on with immunity in a free for all living opulent lifestyles, jet setting to exotic destinations and acquiring untold riches.
Former Olympic officials say that with the arrest and remanding of one NOC official, Gobinath Sivarajah, a complete clean-up can be expected barring any political intervention on a scale that undermined a popular people’s revolt against corrupt cricket officials who were saved by the powers that be.
It had to take one Member of Parliament Chaminda Mayadunne to blow the whistle last December for an investigation into shady activities at the NOC for the authorities to act.
In Sri Lanka in the name of sport some of the worst crimes have been committed and not a single administrator taken to task or punished effectively to the point that sport could have lived up to its image of fair-play.
But with Parliament now showing interest in putting a stop to financial and position abuse, the unaccountable acts taking place at the National Olympic Committee (NOC) has come to light.
Branded in Parliament as most corrupt, the NOC now stands in the dock accused of being shielded by bureaucracy to the extent of damning the status and welfare of Olympic Silver medalist Susanthika Jayasinghe and the upcoming Olympian sprinter Yupun Abeykoon.
According to Member of Parliament Chaminda Mayadunne, an Audit Report of December 2022 clearly documents the NOC as the most corrupt.
He claimed the Audit Report was being concealed and branded Olympic officials as human smugglers responsible for the decamping of two administrators, one from the Wrestling Federation and another from the Judo Federation who jumped ship during last year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England in which as many as 54 sports officials from Sri Lanka were accommodated.
In a scathing attack, Mayadunne said officials from the NOC also ripped off payments from the Sports Ministry for the Rio Olympics in 2016 and usurped funds and other courteous benefits provided by the international Olympic fraternity in the name of Jayasinghe and Abeykoon.
“Three hardcore corrupt elements in the NOC took custody of finances meant for Susanthika Jayasinghe provided by the International Olympic Committee while opportunities made available to Yupun (Abeykoon) were squandered,” Mayadunne said in Parliament last December.
Last year Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe in a letter fired to the Director General of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) highlighted several financial misdeeds committed by the NOC.
