Mysterious power outage in Parliament: CEB, CID launch investigations

By Ifham Nizam

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has asked the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to probe the mysterious power outage in Parliament complex at the time of the swearing in of President Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday.The CEB has also launched an investigation. CEB Chairman Nalinda Illangakoon was at a crucial discussion on the issue when The Island tried to reach him in this regard.

The swearing-in ceremony of Wickremesinghe as the eighth Executive President was scheduled to be telecast live by the Independent Television Network and simultaneously broadcast by other television channels as well. The live broadcast stopped due to a power failure immediately after the President Wickremesinghe entered Parliament complex.

In the event of a power outage in the Parliament complex, the generators are usually switched on automatically within two minutes and it is reported that the power was out for about ten minutes at the time of the swearing in of the new President. Officials said that as a result TV channels had not been able to give a live coverage.

However, Sergeant-at-arms of Parliament Narendra Fernando told the media that there had been no power outage in Parliament during the swearing in ceremony.

“We have a generator. I was told that there was a breakdown in the live transmission of the ceremony at a state TV channel. I don’t know what went wrong in that transmission. However I assure that these was no power outage in Parliament,” he said.