Mr Mujibar Rahman, SJB MP, stated that the football federation’s operations worth crores have been handed over to the father-in-law of former sports minister Namal Rajapaksa’s LSR company, and these projects have been awarded without any tenders.
The football federation’s annual general meeting was not convened. Former sports minister prolonged the date of the AGM, which was scheduled in May according to the federation’s constitution. The incubant sports minister postponed it until September 15th, but the date has passed and no event has taken place. Surprisingly, the minister extended it until October 30th via a fresh gazette notification.
The tragic occurrence here is that the gazatte issued on September 17th was not signed by the sports minister, but rather by the Director General, who took the minister’s electronic signature and issued the gazatte as the minister issuing the gazatte notice. This is imposing as a minister an offence minister should interdict the Director General how can he conduct such a thing without the minister’s knowledge
The MP questioned whether the minister is a puppet dancing to the wishes of influential people. It is evident that someone higher up commands these bureaucrats to operate above the minister. At these conditions, it is apparent that former ministers’ ghosts are still active in the sports ministry. As a result, he claimed that the ghosts of prior ministers still haunt the sports ministry.
LSR firm is always awarded all football federation contracts without following the tender procedures. This is a strong indicator that Rajapakse’s stranglehold over all operations has not changed merely because Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe became president.
