INGOs sever links

Several international organizations dealing with the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) had gradually scaled down their operations as far back as early last year after they received adverse reports about the dealings of the organization. Several organizations have claimed that there was hardly any direct contact with the TRO, but some said they were dealing with it through government agencies as the TRO was a registered charity organisation.

"The TRO was an established and acceptable organization in Sri Lanka and was also registered with the NGO Secretariat of the Ministry of Social Services," Save the Children Sri Lanka spokesperson Menacca Calyaneratne said. "We had been working with the TRO since 2004 on projects focused on children until our contract ended in August last year, at which point the TRO had completed and accounted for almost all of the projects that had been implemented.

However, after the Central Bank froze the TRO bank accounts, the TRO was unable to complete work on a few remaining projects and Save the Children is keen to recover this money and invest in another project for children," she said. UNICEF spokesman Gordon Weiss said the UN group had not worked with the TRO since early 2006. "As the TRO was a registered partner with the government, we had worked with it on a range of projects," he said.

The UNICEF spokesman said around US$ 800,000 had been provided to the organization during the three years prior to the UNICEF stopping its dealings with the TRO following adverse reports about the group. World Bank Country Director Naoko Ishii said the Bank had listed the TRO as a partner organisation and it had implemented its projects via TRO with the full consent and agreement of the government.

However, she insisted that the projects funds were channelled only through the Government. Agreement between the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and the TRO had also ended in 2006 following the banning of the LTTE as a terrorist organization in the European Union.

"All programmes and projects implemented by the GTZ are operated jointly under the bilateral agreement between the Sri Lankan and the German Government. “The GTZ was among the many international humanitarian and development organizations which subcontracted TRO for rehabilitation and reconstruction work in 2004 and post-tsunami emergency aid in 2005. This was known and endorsed by the partner Ministry in charge of these programmes,” GTZ Acting Country Director Dagmar Lumm said, reiterating that the GTZ was not a foreign partner of the TRO.