• Awaits passage of Electricity Sector Reforms Bill 

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) stated that all background studies and data gathering work related to its restructuring programme are now completed, but that they must wait until the proposed Electricity Sector Reforms Bill is passed in the Parliament for any of the related decisions to become material fact.

In the midst of the economic crisis that emerged in the country due to following wrong financial policies and the Covid-19 pandemic, the Government focused on placing various Government and semi-Government institutions including the CEB under restructuring programmes.

Commenting on the status of the related programme to The Daily Morning, CEB General Manager, engineer, Dr. Narendra de Silva said that various conceptual level processes are currently underway as part of the restructuring programme. “The restructuring process is currently underway. We have appointed an internal committee and it is working closely with the Restructuring Office established by the Government. All background studies have been done and the required data has been collected,” he said. 

Although such conceptual work is completed, he said that none of the related decisions can be brought to fruition until the proposed Electricity Sector Reforms Bill is passed. “Any institution undergoes some form of restructuring such as transferring officers, opening offices and issuing circulars from morning to evening, but, none of those processes are called restructuring, and they are instead called management changes. Restructuring is a deeper transformation and it has to be done with a legal basis. That is why we have to wait until this Bill is passed.”

Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera was not available for comment.

The CEB owns and operates around 70% of the country’s electricity generation capacity, and currently serves around 6.8 million retail consumers. The process of reforming the CEB commenced in 2022 with the appointment of a committee with the intention of making institutional reforms to the power sector. Certain parties including the Electricity Consumers' Association have however claimed that excessive expenditure would be incurred by the Government to maintain the Office which was established for restructuring the CEB.