CEB trade union alliance accuses PUCSL of putting on a charade

Ceylon Electricity Board United Trade Union Alliance convenor Ranjan Jayalal yesterday alleged that the CEB, the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) and the Ministry of Power and Energy were working together to increase the electricity tariff by an unjust amount.Jayalal said that President Ranil Wickremesinghe is trying to implement his Regaining Sri Lanka agenda and is planning to sell 52 state agencies.

“Once these institutions are privatized, Sri Lanka will have no strategic autonomy. No government will have a say in the country’s economic policy,” he said.Jayalal said that the head of the PUCSL, Janaka Ratnayake, told the Committee on Public Enterprises that his main qualification to be chosen for this position was being a Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) supporter.

“This is his main qualification, and you can understand where he comes from. He pretends that he is opposed to the proposed tariff hike. I will tell you what will happen in a few weeks. The PUCSL will allow a tariff hike and Ratnayake will say that the government was trying to sell a unit of electricity at Rs. 59 but he intervened and made the government only charge Rs. 49 per unit. They all meet in the night and then pretend to be enemies during the day. They are trying to divert people’s attention,” he said.

He said that the unions will not allow the government to increase tariffs as the CEB is making an operational profit. There are seven million electricity consumers, and they will take to the streets if tariffs are increased, Jayalal said.

“One of the biggest problems is the Minister, he has no idea what’s going on,” he said.Meanwhile, CEB Deputy General Manager Noel Priyantha said that the cost of production is 48.42 rupees per unit but the CEB sells at 29.14 rupees.

“So we have to increase. We have been making losses for some time. In 2021 the loss was 22 billion rupees and in 2022, the loss was 151 billion rupees. Things will be worse in 2023. There is a big economic loss in cutting power,” he said.