Govt. owned stake of SLT will not be sold until June 15: Treasury Secretary

• By Lakmal Sooriyagoda  

The Treasury Secretary yesterday gave an undertaking before the Supreme Court that the government owned shares of Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) will not be sold until June 15.

The Deputy Solicitor General who appeared on behalf of the Treasury Secretary gave this undertaking when the Fundamental Rights petition filed seeking an order restraining the Treasury Secretary from taking any steps to divest the shares held by him in Sri Lanka Telecom PLC was taken up for support.
The petition was fixed for support on June 15 by the Supreme Court three-judge-bench headed by Justice 
Gamini Amarasekara.

 President of Sri Lanka All Telecommunication Employees Union J. B. Gurusinghe and its General Secretary Kamalanath Hettiarachchi filed this petition against the decision taken by the Cabinet of Ministers to divest SLT shares held by the 
Treasury Secretary.

 The petitioners are further seeking an order restraining the Treasury Secretary from taking any steps to divest the shares held by him in Sri Lanka Telecom PLC.
The petitioners stated that the purported decision is said to be implemented by the purported State Owned Enterprise Restructuring Unit. The petitioners said they are unaware as to when this decision was taken in principle by the Cabinet of Ministers and such a decision has not been made public.

The petitioners maintained that the arbitrary decision supposed to be taken to divest the shares also affects other shareholders of the State sector, including the Employees Provident Fund, Bank of Ceylon A/C Ceybank Trust, Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation Ltd Fund, Employees Trust Fund, National Savings Bank, Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation Ltd General Fund and Bank of Ceylon No. 1 Account.

The petitioners stated that the said decision has not been made after public consultation or after consultation with the employees of the SLT, including the petitioners’ trade union. They further stated that the said decision goes against the hallowed concept of public trust and the spirit of the Constitution as a majority of the shares of the SLT Company (54.01 percent) is held by the Government of Sri Lanka and by public corporations in which the State is the majority shareholder.

Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne PC with Counsel Charith De Silva, Jayantha Dehiaththage, Migara Doss and Swasthika Arulingam appeared for the petitioners.