Mismanagement of SLT Funds to support the Previous Regime on Interception of Telephone Conversations & Monitoring Short Messages

From LankaNewsWeb

SLT currently has 3 Soft Switches to cater the present Local & International PSTN Services (Voice Calls) from Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corporation of China.

There was a necessity of upgrading the above soft switches to an Internet Multi Media Subsystem (IMS) Platform to unify all the SLT Switching Platforms & all users for unified services.

In the standard & accepted procedure was to call for a Public Tender or Restricted Tender based on a Technical Requirements of SLT publishing the same requirements as Tender Bid Document in the SLT eTender but the above upgrading was concluded without calling for a Public Tender and merely awarding the upgrading to Huawei Technologies to facilitate the negotiations what the previous management of CEO, Mr. Lalith De Silva had with the Rajapaksa Regime and the particular vendor.

Huawei had a long term understanding with the CEO and Mr. Terrrence Fernando (GM / IP Services) by offering an upgrade to their existing Old Soft Switch to a Modular based Platform but originally Huawei promised us to upgrade to a Cloud based IMS. Huawei had cheated in this also. In negotiating this matter
Mr. Lalith de Silva and Mr. Terrence Fernando had negotiated with Huawei to include all necessary
equipment for Voice Call Monitoring System (Lawful Interception System) and awarded the IMS Upgrading to Huawei without following the proper Tender procedure to cover this LIS Equipment.

The Actual Payment due for the IMS Upgrade was around LKR 600,000,000.00 but paid around LKR 940,000,000.00 to Huawei for all the equipment including the Lawful Interception System (Additional Payment of LKR 340,000,000) but nothing was mentioned or reported to the Board of Directors or Chairman. They even went on to the extend of avoiding details in any of the shipping documents.

Once the Equipment were reached to SLT Warehouse, it was understood that Huawei has not send all the necessary equipment for Voice Call Monitoring but delivered only the Interface Equipment in March 2014. Then our Technical Team questioned how SLT could implement the LIS for Voice Call Monitoring without User Interface Equipment having only the Interface Equipment. Huawei wanted to avoid the delivery of such equipment to SLT and deliver only to the President’s House without SLT Staff’s knowledge but our Technical Team questioned Huawei openly and refused to accept the delivered equipment and the payment approval. Finally CEO, Lalith De Silva managed to obtain the necessary

signatures from Terrence Fernando and proceed with the payments. In contesting ths issue, one of the Technical expert Pandula Godakanda who was instrumental in preparing all the Technical Requirements & Documents resigned from the Team and finally requested a Transfer to a different Division refusing to work under this situation.

Although these equipment was imported to Sri Lanka in March 2014, SLT could not installed the equipment since the User Interface Equipment were not available in SLT or not delivered to SLT. Later we got the news to say that these User Interface Equipment were delivered to Temple Trees by Huawei

under instructions from CEO, Lalith Silva and Defense Secretary Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa through Mr. Gamini Senarath. (This information was unofficially conveyed to us by Mr. Eric and Mr. Daniel of Huawei in a social event after a couple of drinks) But our Team insisted Huawei to deliver all the required

equipment to SLT and finally these equipment were delivered to SLT in September 2014. These User Interface Equipment which were delivered to SLT in the 2nd Batch was originally detained by the Sri Lanka Customs but later released with the interference by higher level people in the rank of Gamini

Senarath and Director General Customs, Mr. Jagath Wijeweera. These User Interface Equipment are from a Company in Israel not from Huawei. One set of User Interface Equipment for Voice Call Monitoring was originally delivered to Temple Trees and was operating under the supervision of 2 Chinese Engineers and some Local Security Officers and the 2nd Batch is still in the SLT Warehouse No.A under the strict supervision of Mr. Sugath Silva. None of our Technical Team wanted to install the same and provide the service to the previous Regime. In the last few months CEO, Lalith was so annoyed on this but they managed with the Equipment delivered to Temple Trees. This system installed in the Temple Trees was operated by the 2 Chinese Engineers and Security Staff members and Terrence Fernando in SLT. CEO, Lalith was giving the fullest support and the blessings to Terrance Fernando to operate. All other arrangements are being made by the CAO, Priyantha Perera for Payments and other warehouse arrangements. This matter was very much questioned by GM/Finance, Anura Ranasinghe when it came to the Payment since some mismatches / discrepancies were observed in the relevant documents. CEO, Lalith was directly instructed and managed by then Director, Mr. Shameendra Rajapaksa. They even hide all these from then Chairman, Mr. Nimal Welgama as well.

The following Technical Team was involved and more accurate information and the truth could be investigated by individually & personally consulted secretly. All most all the Team Members were not happy to support this matter but CEO, Mr. Lalith and Terrence Fernando wanted to proceed with Mr.Shameendra Rajapksa. This was very well supported and manipulated by CAO, Priyantha Perera.

Technical Evaluation Team

1. Buddhi Manage – DGM/ International (Project Manager) – 071 4 290321
2. Asiri Galgoda – GM / Network Planning – 071 4 335803
3. Terrence Fernando – GM / Core Networks – 071 4 745325
4. Pandula Godakanda – DGM / Core Networks – 071 4 290031
5. B. Perera – DGM / Switching Regions – 071 4 290326
6. Ajith Kumara – Eng / Switching – 071 5 352048
7. S. Delgoda – Eng / Switching (Regions) – 071 4 291247
8. Priyantha Dabare – Eng / Switching (Metro) – 071 5 348188
9. Thushara Jayawardana – DGM / Planning – 071 4 291134
10. Imali Weerasinghe – 071 6 837853

Commercial Evaluation Team

1. Mr. M. K. C. Gnanathilake
2. Mrs. Wasana Perera – Deputy CEO / VisionCom
3. Mr. U. T. C. Perera – GM / Asset Management & Budget