Cabinet discussion on Public Utilities Commission –

Divulge specific complaints against it

The Minister serving as the spokesman of the Cabinet, addressing a press briefing held on 22.12.2020 to announce the decisions taken at the Cabinet meeting held on 21.12.2020, said in response to a query by a journalist on the course of action taken against the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), that the Government waited for one year for the Chairman to tender his resignation allowing the President to appoint a person of his choice which has been the tradition in the country, but that was not done. He further said that during the past one year the Commission has created many problems in the sector and appeared to deliberately working against the Saubhagye Dekma Policy Framework. He also said that they have received information beyond reasonable doubt that the Commission caused delays of developmental activities of the Ceylon Electricity Board. To say the least, all this is fictitious.

Though a Cabinet paper has been submitted by the Minister of Finance proposing the PUCSL Act to be amended to fall in line with the country’s requirements as reported in the media, apparently no decision has been taken to approve the proposal, as it is not among the approved list of decisions appearing in the Cabinet Office website. It appears that the matter has only been subjected to discussion where the above allegations were levelled against PUCSL. The Minster has the audacity to come out with these allegations in public which were supposed to have been discussed in confidence, when there is no one present to defend the position of PUCSL. When the Cabinet makes such open allegations and makes them public, every Commission member is deemed to be guilty which would reflect badly on their reputation.

The least the Minister can do now is to divulge details of these allegations; what are the Sections in the Saubhagye Dekma that PUCSL has not been working for; what are the instances when PUCSL has blocked CEB’s developmental activities including any power projects and what are the problems that PUCSL has created during the last year as alleged by the Minister. Then the public will be able to decide what the truth is and whether PUCSL was at fault. Here, natural justice has not been exercised, which requires that a person or an institute is given adequate notice, receive a fair and unbiased hearing before a decision is made against the person/institute.

If the Government felt that the PUCSL was indeed responsible for the alleged delays in building power plants and implementing generation plans, the logical action the Government should have taken was to appoint a competent and unbiased committee to examine the allegations and make recommendations, after giving a hearing to the PUCSL’s explanations. If an individual member is found guilty of any misbehaviour, Article 7 of the PUCSL Act spells out the procedure to follow to remove him which requires the concurrence of the Parliament.

It is doubtful whether any of the Cabinet Members are aware of the fact that under Article 2 of the Sri Lanka Electricity Act No. 20 of 2009, the administration of the provisions of the Electricity Act is vested in the PUCSL, and that a holder of generation or transmission or distribution licence will have to get the approval of PUCSL for every activity he proposes to undertake. The PUCSL is then required to verify whether such activities are conducted conforming to the Cabinet approved Guidelines for the Electricity Industry and other provisions in the Act, before such approval is granted. Thus, with the establishment of the PUCSL, the CEB lost the freedom it enjoyed hitherto to carry on its business the way it liked without any intervention of a regulator.

Naturally when the PUCSL pointed out to the CEB that it is acting in violation of these Guidelines and when CEB is adamant not to follow the directives of PUCSL, there will be conflict situations. But the PUCSL cannot be held responsible for such conflicts. See the correspondences that were exchanged between PUCSL and CEB on approving its current draft Plan for 2020-2039 as given in the PUCSL website https://www.pucsl.gov.lk/lcltgep-2020-2039/.

In a situation like this, whatever the Government does, has to be done impartially. But here, it has not been so, for whatever reasons. Even this government, like its predecessor, has demonstrated that it is scared of CEB Unions, simply because they possess the switch to the country’s power supply, which they can turn off anytime unless their demands are met. Naturally, any government would like to avoid such a situation at any cost.

According to the PUCSL Act, “the members of the Commission shall be persons with ability and integrity and have shown capacity in addressing problems relating to, engineering, law, economics, business management, accountancy or administration”. When such professionals with no political affiliation are appointed to a Commission or any Statutory Board, there is no necessity or obligation for the Chairman or other members to resign when the regime changes, as mentioned by the Minister.

Unfortunately, this has been the bane of the country. A minister cannot assume that a statutory body is something he has inherited and he has the right to appoint only persons of his choice to manage it. It is no secret that in the past, many of the public sector organizations failed leading to their closure or selling to the private sector because of appointment of persons with political affiliations to their Boards of Management.

The Writer believes that Professionals appointed to statutory bodies work with the organization’s and country’s interests in mind, irrespective of who is ruling the country. It is unfortunate such that such persons are expected to resign before their tenure is over when a new minister is appointed even within the same government. This practice should stop forthwith.

Dr Janaka Ratnasiri

Nawala