Tsunami charity under threat

Suspended cricket officials have warned that Cricket-Aid, a tsunami charity set-up up by the board to provide emergency relief and rebuild housing, is in danger of collapsing after the sports minister's decision to appoint an interim committee to manage the cricket board.

According to the officials, one welfare centre for 200 tsunami refugees in Matara is now struggling to cope because it cannot be properly managed in the current impasse. A foster parenting scheme to care for 1000 children is also apparently under threat

"We are obviously concerned as we have done some wonderful things and achieved something," Chandrishan Perera, the public relations coordinator of Cricket-Aid told the Daily Mirror. "We are now desperate to sort things out. We've got to stick to our promises and commitment especially for the children."

Perera also voiced concerns that donors who have already pledged or who were considering a pledge will not adopt a 'wait-and-see' approach and freeze payments while the administration crisis continues. "It is difficult to gauge their [international donors] reaction", he said.

The charity's chairman, Thilanga Sumathipala, has hit-out at what he calls "detractors parachuting in to run cricket". "We have given hope to these people [tsunami victims] and we don't want to hurt them. We are in the process of talking to donors and reaching a working arrangement in the best interest of the people", said Sumathipala.

Cricket-Aid's future is also uncertain because questions have been raised over the legality of program's NGO status. The government is believed to be in the process of launching an investigation into the charity's registration.

Meanwhile, the suspended executive committee has been partially successful in the first round of a legal fight with the government, successfully arguing in the Court of Appeal for a temporary restraining order preventing the sports minister from making any further orders over Sri Lanka Cricket during the next two weeks.

Sumathipala's committee has also complained in a media release of a politically motivated mud-slinging campaign, warning publishers to be wary of a "spurious and scurrilous set of concocted minutes purporting to be the minutes of the ICC Executive meeting in Delhi" that is being "maliciously circulated" in Sri Lanka.

The media release claimed that the ICC's president Ehsan Mani had confirmed to Sumathipala on Friday that the draft minutes of the Delhi meeting had not been completed. During the course of the two-day meeting, board members were briefed on the ongoing ICC Code of Ethics inquiry into Sumathipala's links with the gambling industry.