SLT announces second leadership transition in seven months

Sri Lanka Telecom has seen its leadership change for the second time in about seven months with the entity affirming the appointment of a new Chairman.

The state-owned telco, which has been making headlines this week for the changes in its Board, disclosed to the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) that upon the review and recommendation of the Nominations and Governance Committee, A.K.D.D.D. Arandara has been appointed as a Non-Independent Non-Executive Director and Chairman with effect from February 1.

Arandara is currently serving as the Additional Director General of the Department of Legal Affairs. He joined the public service in 2000 and has served as the Senior Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Justice and Director General of the Consumer Affairs Authority. He is a lawyer with 25 years of experience in the legal profession.

He has also held the positions of board member of the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine, Sri Lanka Independent Television Network, Prima Ceylon, Sri Lanka Ayurvedic Corporation and currently serving at SriLankan Airlines.

Earlier this week, Reyaz Mihular tendered his resignation as Chairman after the government said it would reconstitute the SLT Board after the latter refused to withdraw the case against the proposed merger between industry leader Dialog Axiata and Airtel.

Mihular was appointed to lead SLT in July (20) after the Board collectively decided to vote out Rohan Fernando, who was the Chairman of the State-Owned-Entity (SoE) from January 2020.