A board paper will be presented soon at the next Board meeting of the SLT by Maxis directors expressing concern on the present situation of the company and the recent statement made by minister Harin Fernando expressing displeasure over the current operations of State-controlled SLT and NOTED that the Government would introduce a separate semi-government organisation to compete with it if the situation failed to improve.

“SLT is still much unionized and very difficult to get things done. Due to the monopoly, several important steps have been delayed. I believe that there should be a different market force that needs to take this over and we are trying to develop another semi-government company to compete with SLT. I have told SLT to fall in line or otherwise this company will be formed. SLT also feels very comfortable because they are the only National Backbone Network (NBN) licensee in the country,” Fernando said.

Maxis directors were highly perturbed by this statement and they have already conveyed their displeasure to SLt management adding that it will affect the SLT share price in the Colombo stock exchange.

SLT has invested more than Rs. 13 billion in developing its infrastructure over the last two decades and when asked at what cost SLT was going to decide a price for other telcos to share the network, with the intention of getting decent returns, Minister Fernando said: “SLT should really come out with a solid plan on how to share their network.