Inevitable blackouts on the way

As readers know, auctioneers conclude a sale saying “going, going, gone!” with a hammer blow to signal that the final bid has been accepted and whatever’s on offer is sold. We may well adapt the analogy to the impending power cut hanging over our collective necks like a Sword of Damocles with “coming, coming, came!” Thankfully it has not yet come, but the fuel supply situation is threatening thermal electricity generation as the dry season has set in after a year of good rainfall, nay floods, and replenishment of the hydro power generating reservoirs cannot be expected until the next monsoon breaks. So it’s a case of waiting for the sword to fall as the tightrope walk continues with the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) unable to find the dollars to pay for its fuel and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) demanding hard currency to keep even a meager supply of diesel or furnace oil going to power thermal generation.

Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila and Power Minister Gamini Lokuge are at each other’s throats in a war of words where both sides are right. CPC can’t procure supplies without the hard currency that is demanded by its suppliers. The CEB has no dollars and an economy wracked by the worst ever foreign exchange crisis that anybody can remember is in no position to find them. That apart, it is already neck deep in debt to the tune of billions to the CPC for past supplies. Kaata kiyannada (whom to tell?) as the pithy Sinhala idiom goes. We have previously said in this space that Gammanpila is right in his assertion that it is better to suffer 90-minute power cuts daily now rather than endure much longer blackouts down the road. But the powers-that-be, as always, know better and the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) has now got into the act and is determining, almost on a daily basis, whether the CEB has enough fuel to make do, and to continue at least for now without load shedding. The last edict was issued on Thursday with PUCSL decreeing that as power demand falls over weekends, the CEB can manage to continue as is till Monday when another assessment will be made.

So the merry merry-go-round keeps spinning and a government, with its back to the wall with inflation at a historic high and the rupee at a historic low, desperately trying to keep the power supply going in what seems to be a futile effort at preventing further damage to its already plummeted reputation. There is no escaping the fact that its popularity is deeper in the dumps than that of any predecessor despite being popularly elected only two years ago. No doubt Covid-19 is responsible for much of the woes the country is grappling with, but not all of them as repeatedly pointed out by both experts and drawing room and kopi kadey pundits. Regular contributor Sanjeewa Jayaweera has, in a commonsense article we run in this issue of our newspaper, focused on the many reasons of why we are in the present predicament. The situation is grim and the reality harsh. There is neither a quick or cheap fix nor any way of escaping the reality. Threadbare as the cliché is, we have to grasp the nettle with, as always, the taxpayer picking up the tab.

As Jayaweera has pointed out, the CEB does not collect its dues in dollars. Let alone dollars, its overdue bills are now running at over rupees 45 billion and government agencies/institutions not exposed to disconnection like common or garden mortals are among the biggest culprits of non-payment. Television viewers are treated to a nightly diatribe from opposition politicians and trade unionists berating the government for what has already gone wrong and gloomily forecasting that worse is to follow. Not that the people don’t know that already. As is the norm in this so-called democratic socialist republic of ours, strikes are being freely threatened even by those who should know better like CEB engineers. These worthies have just succeeded in having the very recent appointment of a new acting general manager reversed. CEB Chairman MNC Ferdinando, a former Secretary to the Ministry of Power and Energy, recalled from Australia to head the Electricity Board has resigned pleading “personal reasons.” The public will judge how true that is given that the now canceled acting appointment would not have been made without clearance from the top. The people are ot fools and have been recently treated to the spectacle of the Chairman of Litro Gas suddenly removed at the behest of the finance minister reappointed the same day on a presidential order! Who can deny that this country is not treated to first rate entertainment by its leaders.

Electricity tariffs have not been revised since 2014 and it is claimed that consumers are charged Rs. 16 per unit when the cost of generation runs at Rs. 24. Whether this is accurate, though claimed by an expert at a recent TV talk show, we don’t know. There are various tariffs, charged on a sliding scale, with upper-end consumers paying more for high consumption with the less affluent domestic users protected by a lower charge. Then there are different tariffs for industrial users and (at least once-upon-a-time for religious institutions). The relevant figure should be the average charge per unit and whether the above figure is average or not is uncertain. What we do know is that generation cost includes the notorious corruption within the CEB, no doubt interest on its staggering debt, transmission leaks and what have you. But government is understandably hesitant about imposing new loads upon already burdened people who wouldn’t care about long-term implications if they are spared instant rate hikes.