Online edition of Daily News

Audit committee to ensure good corporate governance

Thilanga Sumathipala, Chairman, Sri Lanka Telecom appointed a four-member audit committee to ensure and maintain fair and just corporate governance in the organisation. This decision was taken at a board meeting held recently The committee will be chaired by N. Pathmanathan - Deputy Secretary to the Treasury and comprise three other directors from the SLT Board, namely Kiyoshi Maeda, Ruwan Fernando and Ajit Ekanayake.

The primary aim of the committee will be to monitor and review the scope and the effectiveness of all internal systems such as financial, operational, compliance controls and internal audits as well as management of business risks.

The committee whilst maintaining an important relationship with the company's external auditors will also be the channel of communication between them and the board.

"Sri Lanka Telecom is aiming to be the number one mobile operator within three years," Chairman of Sri Lanka Telecom, Thilanga Sumathipala said. A fully functional 2.5 G GSM network is expected to be in place by the first half of 2003, which will be underpinned by an investment amounting to US $ 70 million over the next two years.

The capital investment will ensure coverage extending to all areas and towns in all major cities including the North and Eastern regions and all major highways and their connecting roads.

The Chairman said that Sri Lanka Telecom, has been exploring the possibility of operating their own Cellular Company for a long time. "We had several offers but finally decided to take over Mobitel which has a very good track record and subscriber base."

The Chairman said that Mobitel was already a branded product and since Telecom previously owned 40% of the shares they decided to purchase the balance. Sumathipala said that SLT is hoping to introduce a new billing system, which would also include Mobitel customers in the future.

"Telecom also wants to emphasise the fact that they will not take undue advantage over their rival competitors. There is no doubt that SLT is the undisputed market leader with over 7,500 fixed lines and the infrastructure to cater to any communication need.

However, other competitors do not have to worry since there is a whole new avenue of business opening in the Northeast. We assure that SLT will keep arms length when it comes to competition with other Cellular operators such as Dialog, Celltell and Hutchinson." The former President of the Board of Control for Cricket, Sumathipala said that they have major promotional plans for Sri Lanka.

"Our future plans include the issuing of the Sigiriya IDD calling card to other counters such as US, UAE, Canada, Australia. We hope to cover 24 major international cities soon."

He said that the agreement signed with Barath Telecom of India brings in 200 million minutes of revenue to Sri Lanka.Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Ravi Karunanayake said that whenever there is healthy competition it is the customer who is finally benefited.

He said that in almost all countries incoming charges on cell phones are totally free and called upon Sri Lanka Telecom to explore the possibility of providing this benefit to local customers. "What the customer needs is 'keep on talking at a lower rate," he said.

Mobitel was launched in 1995 as a joint venture between SLT and Telstra Corp of Australia and is Sri Lanka's Premier Cellular Network with a reputation of providing the widest coverage and superior call quality. The hallmarks of Mobitel's service are minimum congestion, least number of lost calls, greater clarity and easy establishment of calls.

From its inception, Mobitel's main goal has always been to keep its network and services in line with cutting edge emerging communication technology.

Other goals include retaining customers by providing customer oriented services while providing the best price/quality advantage of all mobile networks operating in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka Telecom is one of the country's most vital utility companies with an annual turnover in excess of Rs. 22 billion. The company employs a workforce of more than 8,000 and has an islandwide network. The company has had a rapid improvement in its service and productivity by tripling its network strength from 250,000 to 750,000 connections whilst maintaining the same staff strength. Today with NTT of Japan as a strategic partner, SLT provides facilities and services to its customers, which are unmatched in scope.