SL’s failed Commonwealth Games bid and lesson from Australia

The Australian state of Victoria pulled out of hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games this week with the state government saying that the estimated cost of AUD 7 billion was ‘well and truly too much.’

“I will not take money out of hospitals and schools to host an event that is three times the cost estimated,” Victoria State Premier Daniel Andrews has told the media.

The news takes us back to the infamous failed bid by the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration in 2011 to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Hambantota which left the country poorer by over Rs. 600 million but helped fatten the bank accounts of the corrupt syndicate.

In true Rajapaksa style, the failed bid to host the 2018 games and millions lost did not deter them from thinking of taking another shot at hosting the games. With the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019, there were moves to revive the bid for the 2026 games but with him out of office, the plans had to be shelved. There’s a great likelihood if Gotabaya Rajapaksa was still president, they would’ve come up with a tagline saying, “Australia’s loss is Sri Lanka’s gain” and embarked on another useless and wasteful attempt with nephew Namal Rajapaksa, who he had appointed as Minister of Sports Affairs, taking the lead.

It may be unsavoury to some but it is important to refresh the minds of the public that it was corruption and quest for personal glory by the politically powerful that has placed the country where it is today. The failed commonwealth games bid is one of many futile exercises. The full extent of the misuse and pilfering of both public funds as well as donations from various institutions and private individuals for the failed bid came to light when the Auditor General published a Special Audit Report on “Securing the Hosting Right for the Commonwealth Games – 2018.” The Report was released in 2019.

The Report revealed that a State-owned company called CWG 2018 (private) was incorporated to execute, implement and present Sri Lanka’s bid to host the Games and it had raised Rs. 689.9 million with the Sports Ministry and General Treasury providing Rs. 110 million in initial capital while the Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) and Sri Lanka Telecom contributed Rs. 18 million. Cash grants were obtained from private organisations and individuals.

The AG’s Report said there was no monitoring of how this money was spent and there was no transparency and financial control. The company itself had been incorporated without Cabinet authorisation with various consultants selected contrary to procurement guidelines.

While the public was treated to fancy photographs of VIP engaging in in fun and games, the Report revealed that the SriLankan Airlines flight chartered to carry officials to win support for the bid to the Caribbean islands of St. Kitts and Nevis cost more than Rs. 86 million. The flight consisted of ministers, MPs, officials, all on board for a joyride for which the public of this country are paying till today. This and other vanity projects undertaken without a care for the impact it would have on the public finances has plunged the country to the mess it is in today. Not only are people burdened with high cost of living and deprived of basic healthcare and other facilities but unbridled corruption that led to the economic mess has resulted in, the youth in particular, losing faith in the country of their birth and seeking lives overseas.

An Australian politician said no to hosting the Commonwealth Games, however prestigious that might have been, because he did not want to take money out of hospitals and schools. In Sri Lanka, we have had the misfortune of having politicians who took and continue to take money out of every essential public service and fatten their bank accounts by stealing in the guise of hosting an international sporting event, building highways, ports and airports or some mega project or the other.

For such politicians the game is not over yet but the citizens of this country are paying a heavy price for voting greedy and corrupt rulers to office.