• Notes he doesn’t pay the electricity bills; only buyers, residents, and guests do
• Says PUCSL Chair must necessarily have business experience

Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) Chairman Janaka Ratnayake, in response to President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s allegations made in Parliament last Thursday (8) of a conflict of interest on the latter’s part, stated that it is immaterial if he is the chairman of hotels and apartment complexes as he does not pay the relevant electricity bills, but the residents, guests and owners of the apartments or hotel rooms do.

Wickremesinghe had accused Ratnayake of being in a conflict of interest, claiming that an electricity tariff hike would directly affect the operational costs of Trillium Hotels and VIP Residencies, of which Ratnayake is Chairman.

Speaking to The Morning yesterday (11), Ratnayake stated: “If by conflict of interest, he means that I run hotels and apartments and I consume more electricity, these factors do not prevent an individual from being a member of the PUCSL. When I undertake construction work, especially apartments, they are sold to customers; therefore, the apartment doesn’t belong to me, and it is those living in the apartments that settle the bills.”

Speaking further, he noted that a provision of the PUCSL Act states that a Commission member should be qualified in the field of business. 

“If you look at the Commission members’ qualifications provided in the Act, a qualified businessman representing the commission should be appointed, and I am filling that gap. It is a provision of the Act that probably wouldn’t have come to his mind.”

In response to the President stating that the authority over the decision of a tariff hike lies with the Cabinet and the relevant Minister, and not with the PUCSL Chairperson, as he prepared the PUCSL Act himself, Ratnayake said: “If you look at revisions of electricity tariffs over the last decade, the PUCSL has always made the decisions on those. In 2013, 2014, and 2021, there was no Cabinet involvement in the process. They (the Cabinet) are entitled to make policies and we are entitled to look at proposals, do the numbers, and approve it accordingly. He may have been confused, or wrong information may have been given to him by officials and other individuals in the political hierarchy.”

However, he also commended the President for his involvement in setting up the PUCSL as an independent Commission. 

“The PUCSL was established during his (Wickremesinghe’s) tenure in 2002, so credit should go to the present President in creating an independent commission such as this. With all due respect, he knows the conditions and the process of tariff hikes and other things, which he may have forgotten since it’s been almost 20 years since.”

The Cabinet approved a quarterly electricity tariff hike recently, to be implemented in the months of January and June in 2023, to which Ratnayake immediately responded saying a tariff hike was not necessary.