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CEB Engineers’ Union wants CEB Chairman removed

24 Jan 2022

  • Allege Ferdinando’s actions rooted in protecting New Fortress deal 
The Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers’ Union (CEBEU) yesterday (23) called upon the authorities to immediately remove CEB Chairman M.M.C. Ferdinando, claiming that his actions are rooted in ensuring the New Fortress Energy Inc. (NFE) agreement. “CEBEU learnt that the bogus acting General Manager of CEB Dr. M.N.S. Perera has hurriedly signed some crucial documents pertaining to the New Fortress deal today, under the title of General Manager. In order to prove to courts later that such action is legitimate, he had also ordered Deputy General Manager to bring posting letters of 50 new engineering recruits to his signature. He had also hurriedly placed his signature on the Annual Transfer circular of CEB to ‘legitimise’ his appointment. It is learnt that he had done this on the advice of Ferdinando to prove later that he was the duly appointed GM and hence his signature placed today on the New Fortress Energy documents are valid,” the CEBEU claimed in a press release yesterday. Thus, the CEBEU expressed its strongest displeasure at the conduct of Ferdinando, who, they claim, “is trying to run CEB as his own property and doing all these manipulations to achieve his sole ambition in CEB – striking the Yugadanavi New Fortress LNG deal”.   “We call the authorities to immediately remove this disgraceful Chairman from this office and create a proper working environment before the whole country plunges into darkness,” the CEBEU emphasised. The CEBEU launched a sick leave campaign on 18 January, against, what they claim, the “illegal appointment of Eng. Dr. M.N. Susantha Perera”, as the new temporary General Manager (GM) of the CEB. The Morning learnt that Eng. Dr. Perera assumed his duties as GM from 15 January. According to the CEBEU, Perera was also the second witness on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) during the signing of the agreement between New Fortress Energy Inc. (NFE) and the GoSL. Ferdinando was the first witness. The Morning reported last month that the controversial deal was proposed by New Fortress Energy (NFE) Head of Power Jatila Ranasinghe and was mediated by two individuals, one a Board Director at a leading conglomerate in Sri Lanka as well as a former Provincial Council member, and the other, Ferdinando. Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayaka tabled the aforementioned agreement in Parliament on 10 December, which shows that the deal was signed between the GoSL and NFE Sri Lanka Power Holdings LLC. A copy of this shows that Ferdinando and Perera have signed as the first and second witnesses on behalf of the GoSL. The CEBEU  said that the appointment of Perera as the General Manager has been made in violation of Section 5(1) of the CEB Act (the appointment be made with approval from the Power Minister) and Section 5(4) (the GM shall retire from office at the age of 60 years). “An emergency Board meeting was called on 21 January 2022 afternoon, specifically to appoint the new General Manager to CEB after officially receiving the written approval of the Minister as required under CEB Act to appoint the next GM and after the Attorney General has officially communicated his opinion as to how the next GM appointment is to be made. These two documents cleared all doubts that the ‘acting’ appointment made by CEB Chairman earlier of a person above 60 years of age (and is currently on bail with two pending court cases) violated the order of the Court of Appeal. However, Ferdinando had purposely evaded the Board meeting and attended a discussion at the treasury on the Yugadanavi deal instead. It is very clear to CEBEU that Ferdinando is purposely disrupting the CEB decision-making machinery during this critical power crisis to inconvenience the Government and public with a view of showing that buying liquefied natural gas (LNG) from New Fortress is the only solution left to the country to keep lights on,” claimed the CEBEU yesterday. Ven. Elle Gunawansa Thera, His Eminence Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) General Secretary Ranjith Madduma Bandara, and some office bearers of the JVP, and other parties, including the CEBEU, have filed petitions against the Government’s decision to hand over 40% of the shares of the Yugadanavi Power Plant to NFE, along with a monopoly over supplying LNG. Accusations have earlier been levelled at the CEBEU for deliberately causing the islandwide power outage that occurred on 3 December, amidst their ongoing TU action against the aforementioned agreement. Multiple attempts by The Morning to contact Ferdinando yesterday proved futile.


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