• Consumers want PUCSL to reject ‘baseless’ CEB arguments, Asso. claims ready to sue CEB & PUCSL if revision is greenlit    

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), which has made some new submissions to the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) regarding the reduction of the electricity demand, is waiting for the latter to decide the fate of the proposed tariff revision following the public consultation on the same held yesterday (18).

A public consultation on the proposed electricity tariff revision, organised by the PUCSL, was held at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall in Colombo yesterday.

Since the PUCSL had recently called for a resubmission of the tariff proposal, using the most recent available data, before yesterday, The Daily Morning queried the CEB Chairman Nalinda Illangakoon regarding the CEB's position on the matter, to which he replied: "They had the public consultation, and we don’t know what will happen." In response to a query as to whether any communication had been submitted to the PUCSL by the CEB anew, he said: "We have given some proposals to them regarding demand reduction. They will analyse them."

Meanwhile, claiming that all four arguments put forward by the CEB as to why the electricity tariffs should be increased have now been confirmed to be baseless, the Electricity Consumers' Association (ECA) stated that the PUCSL should work to reject the CEB's request to increase the electricity tariffs. 

Speaking to The Daily Morning after attending the PUCSL's public consultation, the ECA General Secretary Sanjeewa Dhammika said that he had pointed out to the PUCSL that none of the arguments put forward by the CEB as to why the electricity tariffs should be raised, had been proved to have any basis. Therefore, according to him, what the PUCSL should do is to reject the CEB's request. "The CEB had stated that the daily electricity demand will increase in the coming months. But, it has gone down from 44 gigawatt hours (GWh) to 41 GWh. Their second argument that hydro power generation will decrease due to dry weather has also no basis, as there is continuous rainfall, and hydro power generation is speedily going up. Then they (CEB) stated that a kilo of coal is Rs. 97 whereas its price stands at just Rs. 52 as of now. Although they said that the CEB incurred losses, it is predicted that the CEB's profit this year (2023) would exceed Rs. 20 billion," he explained.

If the data and arguments presented by the CEB were wrong, Dhammika said that a raising of electricity tariffs based on such data and arguments would also be wrong. "If the PUCSL grants permission to raise tariffs by accepting this false information, the burden of Rs. 50 billion that would be placed on the people through it should be charged from the CEB officials who presented such information as well as the PUCSL officials who granted approval to such an illegal tariff revision. The Auditor General and the Finance Ministry Secretary are empowered to do so. If they don’t do it, we are ready to file lawsuits against the relevant officials in their names," he added.

In a recent letter addressed to the Director General of the PUCSL, the CEB had stated that it had proposed a 3.15% reduction in the electricity tariff for the period from July to December, 2023, but that the PUCSL had reduced the tariff by about 14.2%, thereby curtailing a considerable amount of the allowed expenditure (approximately Rs. 33 billion) for the operations of the CEB for 2023. Therefore, the CEB had requested the PUCSL to take appropriate actions, impliedly the approval of a tariff hike. The PUCSL had then called for suggestions and comments from the public in that regard until yesterday.