Chairman of NCASL gives earful to Govt., CEB

By Rathindra Kuruwita

Around 2,000 factories had closed down while about 500,000 people had lost their jobs due to high costs of production, Chairman of the National Construction Association of Sri Lanka (NCASL) Susantha Liyanaarachchi said commenting on the decision to increase the electricity tariff.

“If you look at our industry, about 1.1 million are out of work. There are over seven million consumers of electricity. There are about 100,000 people who don’t pay their bills. There are powerful businessmen and politicians that don’t pay electricity bills. The CEB keeps this data without doing anything,” he said.

Liyanaarachchi added that the government talks about increasing manufacturing in the country, however by continuously increasing fuel prices and electricity tariffs the government makes it impossible for industrialists to operate.

Ceylon Electricity Board Senior Engineers’ Association (CEBSEA) spokesperson Engineer Nandika Pathirage said he agrees that industries are collapsing because of high electricity tariffs.

“I know that there are lots of industries that are making just above the breakeven point. Some industries will collapse if expenses go up by 10 cents a unit. This is very sensitive. We need to generate electricity at cheaper costs. We need to get out of fossil fuels and focus on renewables,” he said.

Pathirage mentioned that reservoirs are receiving rain, however there are limits to what can be generated through hydro power.In July 2023, the income of the CEB was 55.1 billion, he said. It dropped to 50.9 billion by September, following the 14 percent reduction of tariffs in June.

“We can produce more electricity using hydro power in these rainy months. But we will be using more fossil fuels from February to April. This is why the CEB wants to keep rates steady until June 2024. The CEB also has no working capital and we have not paid private companies that produce renewable energy in months,” he said.