ICES In Sri Lanka Is Under Investigation

By Muttukrishna Sarvananthan –April 4, 2016 

Dr. Muttukrishna Sarvananthan

In response to the exposes in the Colombo Telegraph during the latter half of January 2016 (see below for titles and the web links) and a formal complaint lodged with the Counter Fraud and Whistleblowing Unit (CFWU) of the Department for International Development (DfID, United Kingdom) by this author, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Canada) has launched a forensic audit of the financial accounts of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES, Colombo, Sri Lanka) pertaining to the Safe and Inclusive Cities (SaIC) and Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) programmes co-funded by the Department for International Development (DfID, UK) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Canada) and managed by the latter. In fact, 70% of the total funding for the GrOW programme is by the DfID.

An international audit firm has been hired by the IDRC to undertake a forensic audit of the accounts pertaining to the aforementioned two projects at the ICES in Colombo. Accordingly, personnel from this multinational audit firm were in Colombo during the week March 14 – 20, 2016 and met this author on March 18, 2016.Their report to the IDRC is due before the end of April 2016. The ICES is probably the only NGO in Sri Lanka that has been subjected to forensic auditing by a grantor to date.

The Board of Directors of the ICES, which has been silent on the exposes in the Colombo Telegraph, has issued a statement to the media in Colombo after two months (reported in the Daily Mirror of March 19, 2016, The Sunday Times of March 27, 2016, and The Sunday Times of April 03, 2016) claiming that “The International Development Research Center, which supports the research, has monitored its progress and communicated its satisfaction at the manner in which the research is progressing.”

The aforesaid statement of triumphalism by the Board of Directors of the ICES hides the fact that it is under intense scrutiny by the co-funders, viz. DfID and IDRC. If the statement by the ICES Board is correct then it is the IDRC which should issue a public statement to that effect. In fact, I believe the IDRC itself is under investigation because of its continued funding of the ICES in spite of a negative project evaluation report by Mark Hoffman of the London School of Economics in May 2009.

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