Stop blowing the coals

Thursday 22nd December, 2022

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) trade unions and Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera have, true to form, locked horns over the availability of coal in the country, instead of getting themselves around the table and making a concerted effort to contain the power crisis. They are behaving like a bunch of overgrown schoolboys with very short fuses!

The CEB trade unionists have warned, at a recent media briefing, that the country will experience extended power cuts lasting for 10 hours or more daily because the Norochcholai power complex is running out of coal. The public has already panicked. Such power cuts will make the country’s economic recovery even more difficult.

Minister Wijesekera, who has gained a reputation for firing from the hip, lost no time in trying to pooh-pooh the CEB trade unionists’ claim; he even threatened disciplinary and legal action against the President of the CEB Engineers’ Union for making what he called misleading statements.

Are the CEB trade unions ‘merchants of gloom’, as the government says? Or, is the Minister of Power and Energy trying to hide the truth in verbal camouflage?

We cannot expect either the CEB trade unions or the government to tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the coal issue. They are notorious for resorting to ‘terminological inexactitudes’, stretching the truth, making mendacious statements, or even telling barefaced lies to safeguard their interests. Both the political authority and officialdom are responsible for the current power crisis, and it is not out of any love for the public that the CEB trade unions have taken on the government. Similarly, the government politicians are all out to tame the power sector trade unions to facilitate its divestiture programme and line their pockets on the pretext of resolving the economic crisis.

In a few weeks, the people will know who is trying to mislead them. If the coal stocks are diminishing, as the CEB engineers have warned, then the government will have to ensure that the country has enough coal stocks. It has to pour on the coal! Otherwise, the Norochcholai power plants will not be able to operate, and it will be well-nigh impossible to meet the resultant shortfall in the power supply with electricity generated elsewhere; there will be longer power cuts in such an eventuality.

Is a sinister attempt being made in some quarters to create a coal shortage so that the CEB will have to buy power from the private sector at much higher prices, and the government will be able to bolster its claim that electricity tariffs have to be increased to maintain a reliable power supply? The government stands accused of having undertaken to jack up electricity tariffs to make the CEB attractive to investors as part of its divestiture programme.

As for the massive power tariff hike to be effected next year, the people are not likely to take it lying down. In fact, they will not be able to pay more for electricity, given the economic hardships the government continues to heap on them almost on a daily basis. Some CEB workers who tried to disconnect the power supply to a minister’s residence due to the nonpayment of bills had to beat a hasty retreat with black eyes and bumps on their heads, we are told. What if the people who cannot pay for electricity due to tariff hikes choose to emulate the minister concerned? The Opposition has threatened to take to the streets to prevent any more power tariff hikes.

The government politicians are behaving as if the people were responsible for the country’s bankruptcy. Having ruined the economy and caused many problems including power cuts, they are now asking the public to choose between paying more for electricity and facing extended power cuts! They are testing people’s patience, which is wearing thin, and inviting trouble. Let them be warned that they are playing with fire; the next popular uprising will take on tsunamic proportions.

The government claims that tourist arrivals are improving, and therefore its political rivals ought to act responsibly without staging street protests, etc. Longer power cuts will have a far worse impact on tourism than protests, and therefore everything possible will have to be done to ensure a reliable power supply. Hence the need for the Minister of Power and Energy, other government politicians, and the CEB trade unions to powwow and sort out the issues the power sector is beset with, instead of blowing the coals and going for one another’s jugular at the drop of a hat.