Each year, Southwest monsoon conditions create adverse weather challenges for Sri Lanka with many parts of the island inundated with rain accompanied by thunderstorms. This pattern of weather has been consistent for decades, with rare exceptions. It is a period of challenges which the Government gears up to face each year, with Government Agents (GA’s), district secretaries, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) and the armed forces preparing for the season ahead of time. However, it seems that the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), the State-owned enterprise (SOE) is the exception to the norm in the state sector.  Given the response by the CEB, it is clear that its management had not adequately prepared for this season of disruptions.

Last week, the heavy rains, wind gusts, and lightning caused thousands of power connection outages around the island, like it has been happening each year. The CEB had reportedly had to respond to over 450,000 outages. Last Thursday, Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera took to social media platform ‘X’ (formally known as Twitter), stating; “CEB has reported over 36,900 breakdowns resulting in power interruptions to more than 300,000 consumers in the last 3 days due to inclement weather. Additional service staff has been assigned to attend the breakdowns and the CEB management & service staff are working 24 hours to restore power to the affected consumers. If consumers are unable to report power interruptions through the CEB hotline 1987, they can use the SMS option to 1987 with BD and the electricity consumer number to follow, use the CEB Care app or through http://cebcare.ceb.lk.” With thousands of customers without power for hours, the call for action mounted. The CEB management and Trade Unions traded blame over the weekend regarding who is ‘responsible’ for the shortage of ‘skilled technical staff’ to address the sudden, large volume of outages reported. Some CEB Trade Union officers blamed the SOE restructuring process, which they had resisted heavily for the shortage in technicians.

While the CEB was known as a ‘bloated’ SOE in terms of excess manpower some time ago, the economic crisis over the last two years has affected skill retention. Reports indicate that the utility supplier is handicapped by a significant shortage of technical staff. Senior CEB officials were cited in news reports stating that the utility's well-trained skilled workers, including engineers, had left the island to find employment overseas. The flight of trained technicians and engineers was not only reportedly due to the economic crisis but also allegedly due to the uncertainty caused by the Government's move to restructure the CEB. Reports indicate that nearly 3000–3500 skilled technicians have left the CEB’s 26,000 strong ranks. The CEB Engineers Union (CEBEU) also issued a press release last Friday (24), expressing its regret for delays in restoring power outages. The union noted that more than 30,000 power outages were reported within an hour in some areas. In its statement, the union said: "Currently, the CEB has a very small number of employees available to restore power outages, which inevitably leads to delays in providing the expected quick service to our loyal customers. We want to clarify that the additional group’s mentioned by the minister have not yet been received by the CEB."

A senior CEB official said that a majority of power outages had occurred in distribution lines being disrupted or falling to the ground due to flying debris and fallen trees and branches. He stressed that the restoration of these outages is very risky due to heavy rains. “Because of this, we are doing this task with great difficulty," he said. However, this situation could have been envisaged, and planned for. The monsoons happen each year. If other branches of the Government plan and prepare for such situations, the CEB should also have done so. 

Some CEB officials claimed that the support of the Armed Force cannot be sourced to help in the interim due to lack of ‘expertise’. This is a difficult argument to accept, the armed forces role of aid to civilian administration is exactly for times such as these. The Army, which has a robust signals corps and a corps of engineers who are well trained, can be of assistance in such situations. They are used as such in many countries including the United Kingdom, Australia and other commonwealth countries, in such contingencies.  The Sri Lanka Navy and Air Force, both being serious technical branches of the military, can provide skilled electrical and civil engineers to support repair operations. It seems that the CEB does not want to take their assistance, and continue to burden the paying consumer, to make a Trade Union point. Shame.  Stop the blame game, and get your act together.