JVP: Abolition of PUCSL high-handed act

By Saman Indrajith

JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Parliament yesterday that President’s Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundara and Treasury Secretary S.R. Attygalle had no authority to abolish the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL).

Speaking during the third reading debate on budget 2021, MP Dissanayake said that those two secretaries had no power to take such actions as the PUCSL had been established under an Act of Parliament.

“How can they scrap the PUCSL? Jayasundera and Attygalle have no authority to do so. If there is anything wrong with the PUCSL it is the Parliament which should take a decision on it. How can Jayasundera send letters to Attygalle to close the commission?”

“The PUCSL always stood for the rights of electricity consumers. Former Finance Minister of UNF Government Ravi Karunanayake tried to buy one unit of power for Rs. 26. He said that there would be a severe drought in the future and power units needed to be purchased. The Cabinet approved Karunanayake’s proposal too. It was the PUCSL which stopped that and said it was a burden on the country. Former Chairman of PUCSL is the Dean of Peradeniya University Engineering Faculty. Former Vice Chancellor of Moratuwa University was a member of the commission. These members are respectable people. How can Attygalle ask them to resign? That power is vested in Parliament. Only Parliament could remove a member of the PUCSL.”

MP Dissanayake said that the PUCSL came under the Finance Minister.

“Then how can the President’s Secretary send a letter to the Finance Ministry Secretary to close the commission,” MP Dissanayake queried.