By Ifham Nizam

Proposals pertaining to the restructuring of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) would be finalised within two weeks, a member of the committee handling them told The Island yesterday.Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera, who had a lengthy discussion with the experts, said that the main framework would be presented to the Cabinet by the end of the month.

The committee, which was recently appointed by the Minister for restructuring the CEB, has held talks with development agencies, sector experts, stakeholders and is also due to meet political parties and the power sector regulator, the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) next week.Minister Wijesekera also said although there were capable and efficient workers at the CEB, the CPC, and the CPSTL, the majority were inefficient and incompetent.

“A good 500 workforce instead of the 4,200 could do the job efficiently at CPC, CPSTL, and half of the 26,000 workforces at the CEB,” the Minister added.

The committee appointed to restructure the CEB is headed by Dr R H S Samaratunge – Former Secretary, Finance Ministry , and other members are President’s Counsel Nihal Jayawardhane – Former Legal Consultant to the Public Enterprise Reforms Commission, Attorney at Law Harsha Fernando – Former Senior State Counsel at the AGs Department M M C Ferdinando, Former Secretary, Ministry of Power & Energy, Dr. Susantha Perera – Former AGM, CEB, Thilan Wijesinghe – Former Chairman, Board of Investment, Saliya Wickramasuriya – Chairman, Petroleum Development Authority and Director General, Port City Economic Commission, and Chandana Wijesinghe – Director, Ministry of Power and Energy Minister.

The Committee said that authorities had been struggling for some 24 years since 1998 to restructure the CEB and many efforts over the years to push through the much-needed reforms had failed due to stiff resistance from workers and others.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe has ordered that the restructuring process of unbundling the CEB by setting up state-owned companies jointly with the private sector management to take over the generation, transmission, distribution and other functions be expedited. Sources said there would be one joint venture each for generation and transmission and three or more for distribution, according to the CEB board paper devised recently for the approval of the board of directors before submitting it to the ministry to prepare the cabinet memorandum.

It has also been proposed to form separate power generation joint venture companies to undertake functions of the CEB relating to hydro-electricity, thermal electricity, coal power and non-renewable power generation, power generation, distribution, and other activities as well as Lanka Electricity Company.

These companies will serve as independent power producers (IPP) and will have to sell the energy they generate to the transmission company, along with other IPPs, the CEB board paper indicated.

A new Electricity Reforms Bill or an amendment to the Electricity Reforms Act No. 28 of 2002 will be drafted and presented in Parliament soon to facilitate the restructuring process.The CEB has incurred a large operating loss of Rs. 47.19 billion in the first four months of 2022 compared to the loss of Rs. 7.15 billion in the same period of 2021.