Power pirates blacked out

by Asanga Warnakulasuriya

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) Special Investigations Division in an all island joint operation with Police raided over 250 leading business locations and imposed fines amounting to Rs. 24.7 million within the first quarter of the 2005.

"Last weekend, officials with Police during a lightning raid arrested 19 persons including a Pradeshiya Sabha member for allegedly bypassing the electricity meters and obtaining electricity for several years causing a huge loss to the CEB," CEB Special Investigations Division Head Reuban Wickremarachchi told the Daily News yesterday. The CEB officials who carried out the raid on the directions of the CEB General Manager Ranjit Fonseka arrested owners of a metal crushing plant, service stations, hotels, restaurants and timber mills in Bambalapitiya, Rambukkana, Kegalle, Negombo, Ratnapura and Akuressa.

An owner of a metal crushing plant in Galmulla had been ordered to pay the biggest fine of Rs. 634,454 to the CEB while a service station owner in Negombo was ordered to pay Rs. 312,087, when they were produced before the Magistrate Courts, the Investigations Officer said. He also said that the number of illegal electricity consumers has increased and the CEB is carrying out frequent checks without waiting for the public to complaint to the CEB. The minimum fine of Rs. 5,000 and a maximum of Rs. 10,000 will be imposed on illegal electricity consumers in addition to settling the outstanding amount.

Failure would result in a jail term, the officer said.

Meanwhile, a four-hour strike was launched yesterday by several CEB trade unions to protest plans to restructure the organisation.