Powerful engineers union up in arms against Minister

By Ifham Nizam 

The Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers Union (CEBEU) on Friday expressed grave concern about the move of the CEB top management going by the whims and fancies of Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera.

CEBEU Joint Secretary Isuru Kasthurirathene told The Sunday Island that they believe that the media briefing of the top management was initiated as per the instructions of the Minister of Power & Energy, where CEBEU feels that the top management is being used to do the Minister’s bidding as his often used Social Media (i.e. Twitter and Face Book) have been trashed by the public with their protests against the proposed malicious tariff Hike.

CEBEU points out that it seems obvious that as a politician, the Minister is seeking alternative methods to justify his propaganda to increase the electricity tariff despite immense hardships faced by the Citizens of the Country.

“We strongly believe that the timing of this proposed tariff hike and the agenda of the Government to privatise the CEB has a strong correlation”, the Union said.

CEBEU also said that as per the prevailing law in Sri Lanka, the power to increase/decrease the Electricity Tariff is with the PUCSL and such an authority cannot be overridden by a Cabinet decision.  “Also, we need to emphasise the fact that the current crisis in the Power Sector has been a result of Political decisions made since 2014 disregarding the correct plans, facts and data provided by the specialist of the Sector”, it claimed ignoring the wide scale corruption and waste in the Board.

“If we all remember correctly, the decision to reduce the Electricity Tariff in 2014 by 25 % was taken by a politician and announced by him standing on a political stage, and CEB has been suffering from the consequences of that decision until today.”