CEB won’t disconnect power over non-payment of increased tariff: TUs

By Sujeewa Thathsara

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) employees would not disconnect the power connections to the houses whose owners were unable to pay the revised electricity tariffs, Convenor of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) United Trade Union Alliance, Ranjan Jayalal told the media on Wednesday.

“The government can use the military to disconnect power. The Minister of Power and Energy, Kanchana Wijesekera seems to be angry with the people. The people or CEB workers are not responsible for the collapse of the economy,” Jayalal said.

The government must not increase the tariffs again on 04 January, Jayalal said. This will have a devastating effect on the people as well as the country’s industrial output. “There are over seven million electricity consumers and most of them will be in serious trouble due to the tariff hike on the cards. We increased the tariff by about 75 percent in 2022. The CEB senior management and the government want to increase it by another 65 percent next year. This is too much of a shock,” he said.

Earlier this week, Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera warned that unless electricity tariffs were increased again, there would be extended power cuts. But former Minister of Power Champika Ranawaka has rubbished the government’s claim that the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) is incurring losses, and questioned the validity of the load forecasting (LF) for 2023, upon which the CEB’s decision to jack up power tariff again is based. Ranawaka is reported to have said the country’s daily electricity consumption is 37 Gigawatt hours, and the CEB’s claim that it will increase to 48 Gigawatt hours next year is far-fetched, and the CEB has not factored in a decrease in the demand for power.