No rugby, but SLR staff pocket handsome wages

Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) may be struggling to find sponsors at present, but nevertheless have paid just eight staff members a whopping sum of over Rs. 8 million in the year gone by despite not a single tournament, leave alone a single match, being played.

A consultant named Kevin Herft raked in a hefty sum of Rs. 3 million, whilst an employee named Hamza Hidiyathulla pocketed a cool Rs. 150,000 a month.

The budgeted salaries paid by Sri Lanka Rugby to these two employees alone annually is approximately Rs. 5 million.

LNW, who obtained an extract from SLR’s salary payment sheet for just the month of January, revealed just eight employees’ wages work to Rs. 685,000 per month. Herft and Hidiyathulla are paid Rs. 400,000 out of that amount.

It is believed that Kevin Herft’s consultancy fee was upped by another Rs. 100,000, commencing April 2021, increasing his monthly payments to Rs. 350,000.

An employee at Dialog Axiata, who was up until last month the sponsor of SLR, was miffed when he got wind of these huge payments that are currently being paid to employees at SLR, especially in the midst of COVID-19, as at a time like this, most organisations are trying to minimise costs.

“There was a surplus of over Rs. 36 million that SLR had with regards to sponsorship fees that was paid earlier. We expected SLR to utilise these monies for future tournaments. Since no tournaments had been organised or conducted ever since the SLR Committee, headed by Rizly Illiyas, was elected, we requested them to get involved with our CSR projects at least, so that we could offset some of the already paid sponsorship monies. They assisted us with a beach clean-up and also a visit to an elders’ home. That’s it. But busting money like this is ludicrous. I dread to think what salaries and perks are being paid to the higher-ups at SLR, simply going by these figures.”

Meanwhile, a prominent club rugby stalwart, speaking to LNW, said: “ Strangely, this Executive Committee has stopped circulating the monthly accounts, unlike the previous committees, who maintained transparency. It would be very interesting to know what SLR’s exact fixed monthly costs are.”  (LNW)