LIRNEasia » Government of Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka government decrees mobile use socially desirable

Rohan Samarajiva — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:48:48 +0000

In the process of trying to deflate inflation numbers (not inflation), the Government of Sri Lanka has removed alcohol and tobacco from the new price index because they are socially undesirable (not because government taxes are driving those prices through the roof) and included for the first time mobile phone charges.

This is a positive move for a government that has imposed an additional 7.5 per cent levy on mobile charges (the government currently takes LKR 26.50 of every LKR 100 spent on mobiles through value-added and mobile-specific taxes). At least this should bury the misconception that mobiles are used only by the rich.

So mobile use is socially desirable. But not fixed phone use? Why can’t these guys get it into their heads that a phone call is a phone call?

Sri Lanka inflation rockets to new record of 26.2-pct amid money printing – LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE

It was later revealed that alcohol and tobacco has been removed from the CCPI (N) index on a government directive, and was justified, because it was against a government campaign against the use of intoxicants.

The Centre for Poverty Alleviation, a non-profit organization, said the move went against an International Labour Organization recommendation that price indices should not exclude items that “may be considered socially undesirable”.

Alcohol and tobacco prices frequently go up in Sri Lanka as they are taxed heavily.

In a transparent ploy, authorities had then replaced alcohol and tobacco with mobile phone charges which have been steadily falling for more than a decade and are expected to fall further.

Opacity leads to confusion in SLTL share sale

Rohan Samarajiva — Tue, 29 May 2007 05:31:13 +0000

The usually well-informed LBO.LK appears to have gotten confused in the “fog of war” created by interested parties seeking to extract rents from the sale of 25% of SLTL shares by NTT to GTH, both private companies, and by the unfortunate opacity of the transaction (something that is quite surprising because SLTL is a publicly traded company and the interests of thousands of shareholders are affected by the transaction).

The source quoted by LBO below appears to have been quite familiar with the ORIGINAL shareholders agreement signed between the Government of Sri Lanka and NTT in 1997, but appears to have been comatose since then. Provisions regarding no universal service obligations (USO) and international exclusivities were in that agreement and did bind the Government of Sri Lanka. The no-USO provision continues to date, though the international exclusivity ended with the issuance of external gateway licenses in March 2003.

Why LBO’s anonymous source is claiming that provisions that were in force since 1997 are newly being imposed in 2007 is a mystery. And how the humpty dumpty of SLTL’s ambiguous international exclusivity can be put back again, the Rip van Winkle interviewed by LBO does not tell us.

If the Colombo Stock Exchange applies its rules without exception this kind of confusion can be avoided. Why does it not? Should the SEC get involved?

LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO

Sources familiar with the deal’s provisions claimed it could also undermine telecom regulation in the future because it prevents a universal service obligation being imposed on SLT and has provisions to protect its dominance in international telephone services.

Hazard Warning Initiatives: Media Event

Divakar Goswami — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 10:53:50 +0000

LIRNEasia organised a press conference to highlight two major initiatives in the area of hazard warning, one that it launched on providing disaster mitigation and last-mile connectivity to tsunami-affected villages and the other that it wrapped up on dam-related hazard warning system for Sri Lanka.

LIRNEasia released A Concept Paper for a Dam-related Hazard Warning System in Sri Lanka: A Participatory Study on Actions Required to Avoid and Mitigate Dam Disasters in collaboration with its project partners, the Vanguard Foundation, Sri Lanka National Committee on Large Dams (SLNCOLD), Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) and Sarvodaya. This work was funded by the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives. Prof. Rohan Samarajiva, Executive Director of LIRNEasia, handed over the final concept paper to U. W. L. Chandradasa, Director, Disaster Management Centre, Government of Sri Lanka. Excerpts from Kantale: 19 Years Later, a video documentary that was directed by Divakar Goswami and produced as part of the dam hazard project was screened on this occasion.

LIRNEasia and Sarvodaya formally launched a project to prepare tsunami-affected Sarvodaya villages to be disaster resilient. In the first instance, this project would evaluate disaster mitigation training and a number of ICTs for last-mile connectivity to 32 tsunami-affected villages in Sri Lanka. Based on the relative effectiveness of the ICTs, recommendations would be made on a wider-scale deployment of last-mile technologies and disaster preparedness training.

Rohan Samarajiva outlined the project objectives, methodology and introduced the project partners. Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne, Executive Director of Sarvodaya, described the last-mile hazard information project as part of Sarvodaya’s integrated response to disasters. He also announced the opening of the Samana Teta Disaster Management Institute in Moratuwa the day before, that would act as the coordinating hub for the project. Dr. Wil Baker, Senior Vice President from WorldSpace, described the features of the Disaster Warning Response and Recovery system based on addressable satellite radio technology that would be deployed with other ICTs in the coastal villages. Nalaka Gunawardena from TVE Asia Pacific and Gordon Gow from the London School of Economics, project partners, were also present to answer questions from the media.

The media coverage of the event will be tracked in the comments thread below.