The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has requested time until the second week of this month (April) to submit the final report on the islandwide power outage that occurred on 9 February to the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL).

Former Minister of Power and Energy Patali Champika Ranawaka recently claimed that a CEB report had revealed that the said power outage was caused by a defect at the Victoria Power Station, and accused the CEB of attempting to alter the report.

When queried by The Daily Morning as to whether they had received the report in question, the PUCSL's Communications Director Jayanath Herath said that the CEB had only submitted a preliminary report on the incident. "They (CEB) have not yet sent us the final report. We requested it, and the CEB has asked for time until the second week of this month. The necessary course of action will be taken when it is received," explained Herath.

There have been several islandwide power outages, with the most recent one occurring on 9 February, which took several hours to restore. Subsequent reports including statements issued by the Ministry of Energy suggested that the outage was triggered by an issue at the Panadura grid substation, with some claims even attributing it to a monkey tampering with electrical equipment.

However, speaking to The Daily Morning early this week, Ranawaka said that a report prepared by the CEB on the incident had been released and made no mention of an issue at the Panadura grid substation. "The report is out now. It states that the Victoria Power Station was not properly maintained, causing it to trip (a safety mechanism where a circuit breaker or switch automatically shuts off power due to an overload or fault). The CEB is now trying to alter that report."