SLT denies that election results could be cooked

7 January 2015 04:45 pm

Sri Lanka Telecom PLC (SLT) today categorically denied an item published on a website alleging that those who know the SLT terminal line password could alter the results of today’s presidential election.


SLT Group Chief Executive Officer Lalith De Silva, at a hurriedly called media briefing at the SLT Head Office in Colombo, said that they were making arrangements to take legal action against the particular website.


“Initially, as was our duty, we informed Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya on Wednesday about the issue. He called us for a meeting yesterday, where he also agreed that the allegation was false and condemned the act. We will decide what legal action to take against the website later on,” he said.


He said Mr. Deshapriya had averred that his decision to assign the SLT as the telecommunication network provider for election purposes was taken because of the trustworthiness of the company.



Mr. Silva said that these allegations at a time close to the poll would damage the image of the company and also impact on the credibility of the poll results, especially internationally.


Elaborating, Chief Network Officer Priyantha Fernando said they were in no position to alter the election results but that those who didn’t sufficient technical knowledge would be misled by the article.


“The article specifically says that the SLT could only alter results by ‘faxes’. This is not possible and is a completely false statement. We don’t connect routers to the PSTN as alleged in the article. And even if the fax were altered, the emails and the results received through other means would be the same,” he said.   (Lahiru Pothmulla)