Minister: CBEU claims ad hoc reforms in CEB will not be acceptable to international lenders

By Ifham Nizam

The Ceylon Electricity Board ((CEB) should be restructured without any political interference as international lenders like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and particularly the Asian Development Bank (ADB) would not entertain ad hoc committee decisions when it came to restructuring, a senior electrical engineer who is also an executive member of the Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers Union (CEBEU) claimed yesterday.

The engineer said that top priority during the restructuring process should be the consumers and then the employers of the CEB. “If anything is properly done, we (CEBEU) would certainly support restructuring. However, structuring can’t be done within a month as the government says,” he added.

Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekara earlier said that the Cabinet of Ministers had approved the restructuring of the debt ridden CEB. A committee would be appointed to provide recommendations within a month from their appointment on the CEB restructuring plan, he said.

During a meeting with officials from the Sustainable Energy Authority, Minister Wijesekera said that since 2014, the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) had not implemented any major power generation projects.

“We have also not made much progress in promoting renewable energy. We need to change the system so that more emphasis in paid on promoting renewable energy,” Minister Wijesekera said.

The Minister added that the power generation, transmission and distribution had to be unbundled. He added that he would seek the necessary Parliament approvals soon.

“The Sustainable Energy Authority has issued various individuals with temporary licences to generate 1,400 megawatts of power through renewable energy sources. But the CEB has not provided the facilities necessary to implement these projects. The country can no longer depend on oil and coal and renewable energy is the future,” he said.

The Minister said Sri Lanka spent about 1.2 billion US dollars on importing fuel for power generation. Coal worth about 300 million dollars, too was also imported, he added.