Trade union wants to appear before COPE

By Shamindra Ferdinando

United Trade Union Alliance Convener Ranjan Jayalal yesterday (23) said that the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) should give a fair hearing to issues relating to waste, corruption, irregularities as well as mismanagement in the power sector.

Unfortunately, the watchdog committee only sought the views of the top management of loss making CEB, trade unionist Jayalal said.

The activist said so when The Island asked for his response to the disclosure made at the COPE recently that in addition to monthly salaries about Rs 1,544.4 mn and Rs 2,134.9 mn had been paid to workers in 2020 and 2021, respectively in violation of a Cabinet decision taken on 14 Nov. 2008 and the Management Services Circular of No 39 of 26 May 2009.

When The Island pointed out that there had been a staggering Rs 590 mn increase in various additional payments made to workers last year, Jayalal stressed that the COPE should ask for a breakdown. The top management included the engineers, who should accept responsibility for the current crisis, Jayalal said, the primary issues at hand were created and caused by the top management and their political masters.

The new controversy erupted in the wake of CEB Chairman M.M.C. Ferdinando after his declaration that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa intervened on behalf of India’s Adani Group.

Jayalal said that Prof. Charitha Herath MP, who headed COPE, shouldn’t forget that the ruling party he represented had ruined the CEB. Successive governments had accommodated their supporters in the CEB, he said, adding that political appointees in turn simply exploited the state enterprise for their benefit, and the CEB had ended up in a dire financial situation.

A senior CEB official declined to comment on the disclosures made by the COPE. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the Board of Management would respond, in writing, to the issues raised by the COPE. The media would have to obtain the CEB’s response from the parliamentary body, the official said. He declined to comment on assertions made by the COPE on the CEB.

Jayalal said that as several ministers appointed by the SLFP-led PA, UPFA and SLPP had been at the helm of the Ministry of Power, they should accept responsibility for excess executive staff and workers in the CEB.

Responding to another query, he said the CEB management always cooperated with those in power. They quite conveniently bent laws and regulations to appease the power minister whoever held that portfolio, Jayalal said, urging parliamentary watchdog committees to seek explanation from the past and present ministers.

Jayalal said that the President appointed both the ministers and Secretaries to the Ministries as well. Therefore, COPE and two other watchdogs, Committee on Public Finance (COPF) and Committee on Public Accounts (COPA), too, should be mindful of ground realities as corruption here was now endemic.