By Saman Indrajith

The government was planning to abolish the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) to help its cronies to jack up electricity prices, JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Parliament yesterday. 

Participating in the third reading debate on Budget 2021, MP Dissanayake said that the abolition of the PUCSL would cause major problems for consumers. “Now work related to the 300MW LNG power plant has begun. So, the Prime Minister in his capacity as the Minister of Finance presenting the budget proposals said that the PUCSL Act would be amended along with the Ceylon Electricity Board Act to enable emergency power purchasing. It is there on Page 28 of the budget speech. Now, we are in the process of debating these proposals. In the meantime, President’s Secretary Dr. P. B. Jayasundara has sent a letter to the Secretary to the Treasury, directing the latter to abolish the Public Utilities Commission.  What is the use of this Parliament then? The commission was set up by Parliament. It prevented various forms of corruption and misappropriations. That commission did not allow the increase of electricity bills according to the whims and fancies of corrupt politicians. Now, the commission is investigating emergency power purchasing. The new LNG plant agreement is to be signed. While the commission was making recommendations and guidelines on the prices of the electricity units of the proposed agreement, the government is going to abolish it.

” The PUCSL cannot be abolished in that manner. It has to be approved by the Cabinet and that decision should be referred to Parliament. It only with parliament approval that it could be abolished. The public utilities commission cannot be abolished by a letter from P. B. Jayasundara. The Cabinet members should have told that to the President and Jayasundera.

“During the recent past, there have been revelations that powdered milk brought from New Zealand is contaminated. Now what does the Trade Ministry got to say about this? Is the job of the trade ministry to make people swallow poisons? Container loads of outdated canned fish have been imported and released to the market. What actions did the trade ministry take? Recently, there was a duty reduction on sugar. Import duty on sugar was reduced from Rs 50 a kilo to 25 cents a kilo. The government said that it had decreased the duty so that the people could have a kilo of sugar at Rs. 85. By that time there was a stock of 9,000 metric tonnes of sugar in the bond warehouses of a private businessman. Thereafter, he brought 26,000 metric tonnes. Nowhere in the country can the people buy sugar at Rs. 85 rupees a kilo. The businessman is the Chairman of Shangri-La, where Viyathmaga meetings were held in the recent past. So, the duty reduction helped the government’s crony. The funds that should have come to the Treasury are now being diverted to the pockets of the friends of government.”