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| Sunday, 20 February 2005 |
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Government concerned : Tsunami aid disappears Sri Lankan government and international donor community have expressed serious concern over the channelling by local NGOs of $2 billion funds donated by the international NGOs and people of many countries. Millions of dollars, collected in the European countries, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand and handed over to local NGOs, have not reached the tsunami affected people. It was reported that only a few hundred dollars had been spent by a few NGOs. Several major international agencies and donors had expressed their concern over the lack of regulatory mechanism to coordinate and regulate the funds brought into the country by NGOs and also to monitor their operations. They had also pointed out that the United Kingdom, United States, India and several other countries have effective regulatory mechanism with regard to the financing and operations of the NGOs. In view of this, Sri Lanka had introduced measures on February 7, to streamline the operations of local and international NGOs. As a result, some NGOs and their local agents have begun a malicious campaign against the government through media and e-mails to stifle the inflow of funds meant for the benefit of the disaster-affected people. The Government, rejecting this vicious campaign, said that all funds handed over to the government are subjected to strict accounting and auditing. It pointed out that all funds donated in the form of cash, had been deposited into two accounts maintained by the President's office. Initially, all the monies were credited to two accounts, one in the People's Bank and other in the Central Bank. However, since January 18, all monies had been transferred to a single account with the Central Bank's National Fund for Disaster Relief. The only other account is maintained by the Prime Minister's office. The details of these accounts, giving names of donors with the amount are regularly submitted to the Cabinet and published in the media. An update is published fortnightly.
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