Senior citizen and former left wing politician Vasudeva Nanayakkara, who drew attention as a public activist as the successful petitioner in the Lanka Marine Services Ltd., (LMSL), is now threatening to take up another public interest issue in court – failure of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission’s (TRC) to comply with a Supreme Court (SC) order of May 7, 2007 to draw up a new tariff structure.
In a letter dated October 10, 2008 to TRC Director General Priyantha Kariyapperuma – copied to The Sunday Times – Mr. Nanayakkara states that ‘OPA’s experts in their presentation to the TRC, around March 2008, explained and established that the TRC’s tariff proposal recommended to the SC is flawed mathematically and technically and that it is in violation of the provisions in the Sri Lanka.
In particular, Mr. Nanayakkara writes that the TRC did not put up to the SC that the per-line operating costs of the SLT since its privatization in 1998 has been declining at around 15% per annum. The TRC also provided disinformation to the SC, to conceal the urgent need arising from above, to update the outdated X factor of price cap CPI – X. The X factor is not a one-time set value. Its regular revision is an essential requirement that underpins its core aim which is to sustain market competitiveness in the fact of advancing technology and declining costs, the letter said.
Further, Mr. Nanayakkara said the TRC also did not inform the SC of the abrupt suspension of this license condition in 1997, on the unjust insistence of Nippon Telephone and Telegraph (NTT), at the time it entered into a joint agreement with SLT, which stalled reduction of tariffs. The TRC also did inform the SC that it failed to revise X in 2002 when the suspension was terminated in 2002 and the Government took measures to revamp the market competitiveness.
Read the full report in ‘Sunday Times’ here.
2 Comments
Lahiruwan
Hooray!
Nuwan
Dear Vasu,
this is truly a golden era of Sri Lankan telecommunication industry..
So pls keep politics away from this. don’t try to sabotage the industry
Nuwan,
http://airtelsrilanka.blogspot.com/
Sri Lanka’s new Bill on Online Safety:comparison with Singapore
A new Draft Bill on Online Safety was recently published in the Gazette of 15th September (issued on 19th September). As stated, the objectives of the Bill are to ‘to establish an online Safety Commission; to make provisions to prohibit online communication of certain statements of fact in Sri Lanka; prevent the use of online accounts and inauthentic online accounts for prohibited purposes; make provisions to identify and declare online locations used for prohibited purposes in Sri Lanka; and to suppress the financing and other support of communication of false statements of fact.
How to effectively address problems posed by harmful user-generated content (and why Sri Lanka’s Online Safety Bill must be withdrawn)
"Safeguarding freedom of speech and expression is so important that it is constitutionally protected in most civilised countries, as it is in Sri Lanka. Legislators seeking to address the new problems posed by rapid and articulated dissemination of user generated content must first decide what the priority is.
LIRNEasia-South Centre Expert forum: Policy Options for Digital Taxation in South and Southeast Asia
LIRNEasia together with the South Centre hosted an expert forum on Policy Options for Digital Taxation in South and Southeast Asia on 19 September 2023. The event was a closed-door event, attended by over 110 tax officials, with participants registered from Global South 40 countries.
Links
User Login
Themes
Social
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
Contact
12, Balcombe Place, Colombo 08
Sri Lanka
+94 (0)11 267 1160
+94 (0)11 267 5212
info [at] lirneasia [dot] net
Copyright © 2023 LIRNEasia
a regional ICT policy and regulation think tank active across the Asia Pacific