Sports Minister Dallas Alahapperuma has produced his best steps so far as he cancelled the registration of a so-called Sri Lanka Ballroom Dancing Association following an investigation into their activities or no activity at all.
The Sri Lanka Ballroom Dancing Association was registered as the country’s 58th national sports body on March 16, 2016 under a special gazette notification.
Besides not conducting competitions, the association had not even held an annual general meeting or submitted an accounts statement.
Even their so-called provincial or district affiliate bodies had not conducted any activities according to the investigation conducted on the orders of Minister Alahapperuma.
The investigators noted that the Association did not even have a legitimate or correct address.
“Let this be an eye opener for unscrupulous sports associations that only exist on paper. This Minister is a no-nonsense man and the others better watch out, they could be next,” a Sports Ministry official told the Sunday Observer.
“Some sports bodies have been formed for personal benefits of officials such as foreign tours, financial windfalls and other benefits from the Sports Ministry, all at the expense of the sportsman.”
Recently a probe committee appointed by Minister Alahapperuma to investigate allegations of mismanagement of funds and other shady activities in the run-up to last December’s South Asian Games had revealed that another sports body that governed a sport called Kho kho, a complete alien, had used up public funds to the tune Rs.8 million to enter the event in Katmandu, Nepal.
Analysts who have been watching the current rot taking place in Sri Lanka sports have equated some sports associations to the drug mafia in the country.