Bill delays halt SLT's Rs 2 bln cash flow

By Bandula Sirimanna

Sri Lanka Telecom's (SLT's) monthly cash flow of around Rs. 2 billion has been frozen since November last year as SLT hasn't been sending bills to clients on time after the revision of a tariff structure in accordance with a recent Supreme Court ruling. A senior SLT official told The Sunday Times FT that it took a long time to upgrade and convert the billing system from unit based to a time based tariff structure. He said that they had to carry out 11 trial runs before finalising the billing conversion procedure. He said however the accumulated bills with accumulated call charges will be sent to its clients on time after March.

However employees and trade unions of SLT accused the management and its IT department of negligence and inefficiency in the introduction of the new system based on a per-second basis in which customers will not have to pay for unutilized time. They urged the authorities to take action against officers responsible for this delay. Cashiers and employees attached to billing centres and Tele shops were idling as no customers were visiting these centres to pay their telephone bills, a trade union official said.

SLT's 11th AGM will be held on March 28 at the BMICH.