Prestigious Galle Cricket Club (GCC) has sacked it’s controversial secretary Gajaba Pitigala with immediate effect, Cricket Age reliably learns.
The decision was taken during club’s cricket committee meeting on March 20. Pitigala was accused of selling fake club memberships. The accusations were levelled by the cricket fans itself, who wanted to become the members of the club, but instead were cheated by Pitigala. Cricket Age had published on March 11 itself that the victims brought the matter in club top officials knowledge and are preparing to lodge a police complaint in upcoming days.
“Based on the report submitted by the inquiry committee, he was removed from his secretary post, however he will continue to be in the general committee as member” a top Galle CC official told Cricket Age.
According to the insiders, until February last year, Galle CC was offering 5,000 (2,000 deposit + 3,000 per year) membership plan, in order to increase the members. Now it has been stopped, as club offers 13,000 (10,000 deposit + 3000 per year) plan for its new members.
The accusations are that Pitigala, a controversial figure, has made fake members through both the plans.
“The club has already suffered a loss of more than SLR 1 million, as Pitigala asked those fake members to deposit payments into his own account, instead of club’s account. Due to his sinful act, there are plenty of members with the same receipt numbers” an insider at Galle CC told Cricket Age.
The club, however, has surprisingly not appointed acting secretary yet.
“It seems that even though Mr. Pitigala was removed, he is stopping club’s top officials from appointing an acting secretary. The general feeling among club members that he is blackmailing some top officials in liquor case. That’s why they are using step down term instead of sacked for Pitigala” the insider added.
