Powering through these times

The second reading of the Sri Lanka Electricity (Amendment) Bill taken up in Parliament was passed yesterday, with a fair share of controversy. With 120 members of Parliament in favour, the Bill was passed with vehement opposition, not from Parliamentary forces per se, but from the Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers Union (CEBEU).

Full withdrawal of the proposed amendments was demanded, alongside reinstatement of the competitive bidding process that existed for electricity tenders and strong rejection of the privatisation of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB). Furthermore, the post of Chairman of the CEB that has been vacant since the resignation of M.M.C. Ferdinando in January this year was to be filled.

While the previous chairman stepped down, allegedly for personal reasons, this was shortly after the resignation of former acting GM Susantha Perera, instigated over the claim by the CEBEU that Perera’s appointment was illegal. The GM position has since then been filled by D.C. Rohantha Abeysekara. This too was following the dispute between the ex-Chairman and management on M.R. Ranatunga’s appointment to the previous GM seat made its way to the second highest court in Sri Lanka. All these demands not being obliged, was to result in a large-scale walkout. The CEBEU had said its members would initiate the protest after midnight on Wednesday. It was to be the first time since 1996 that CEBEU has engaged in a strike of this nature, possibly creating acute shortages of electricity service provision island wide while disrupting other necessary utility services such as water supply. However, this potential disaster was averted with a gazette extraordinaire issued by the President declaring electricity supply as an essential service and followed by talks. The CEBEU called off the strike on late Thursday evening, all the while many districts island wide were experiencing power outages. 

Further legal action has been taken since. The Colombo District Court issued an enjoining order preventing the CEBEU disrupting the continuous electricity supply to the public through trade union actions. While there is a legal stalemate between the CEBEU and their continuation to act against CEB management, it is expected that they will continue voicing displeasure over the events that transpired. According to official reports, some hydro plants are operationally compromised by the CEB System Control Unit traced back to trade union action while full capacity is met at all coal power plants connected to the national grid. MGiven the timing of the situation, the questions asked by the CEBEU should not be avoided all together, however taken with a grain of salt. As the CEBEU makes it out that ‘corrupt individuals’ have employed a ‘cunning strategy’ and therefore are profiting by redrafting the Act in their favour through these amendments. Allegedly this is through securing large-scale renewable and other kinds of power generation projects which are to be implemented in future, namely the Adani Group projects have been brought up.

While this is on the surface favourable, the union holds that this is purely in the interests of these ‘business partners’ and would not add to the sustainability or diversification of Sri Lanka’s energy infrastructure. Historically the CEBEU have shown overly cautious restraint in getting on board with such initiatives from the private sector. According to the union, this is worsened by ending the competitive bidding process that existed making way for committees to decide on high prices.

However, the union fails to critique the competitive bidding that existed on its transparency and to the ends that it benefited certain members within the CEB union as well. Therefore, the claim that the competitive bidding process for procurement of electricity from the private sector - that is without CEB supply to the grid - ensures the ‘least cost’ can in fact be brought into question, as it opposes the long run interests of the consumer to have affordable and uninterrupted supply. As held by the CEBEU, proper and adequate consultations with all relevant stakeholders are indeed necessary to navigate the way forward, and this time ensure transparency is maintained that would not bring about the issue of entertaining duplicitous unsolicited proposals, be it from the Government or anybody.