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Let rationality prevail

WE hope our front page lead story yesterday of the massive financial crisis facing the Ceylon Electricity Board would provoke a re-think among those sections which are on a confrontational path with the Government on its CEB restructuring plans.

The principal point made in our report was that the CEB would plunge into bankruptcy, if it is not restructured and rendered financially viable. As matters stand, the main State banks cannot inject any more funds into the CEB because the latter owes the People's Bank alone Rs. 90 billion.

Since the main State banks, the Bank of Ceylon and the People's Bank, control nearly 60 percent of the banking sector, a CEB collapse is likely to trigger a bankruptcy crisis in the State banks which in turn would disastrously impact the local economy in its entirely.

In other words, a CEB which is financially ruined could plunge the country's economy into a serious crisis. Wouldn't it, therefore, be in the interests of all to have the CEB restructured or reorganised? The reorganisation plan - as our report indicates in broad outline - entails the division of the CEB into nine companies.

However, they would all function under the CEB, which would be fully owned by the Government. The privatization of CEB simply does not arise.

The Government is so emphatic that it wouldn't privatize the CEB that it is on record that legislative provision would be made to require a two-third majority in Parliament for the privatization of the CEB.

Besides, and very importantly, no employees of the CEB would lose their jobs in the reorganisation process. This being the case, we do not see why trade union anxiety and agitation has to prevail over the Government's proposed reorganisation program of the CEB.

We urge that rationality prevails in the current face-off. Continued consultations and dialogue between the Government and the CEB trade unions - with a view to defusing the latter's misapprehensions and doubts - is the ideal course to pursue in these circumstances.

We also counsel patience on the part of these unions. Impulsive trade union action would only spell suffering and hardships for the whole of Sri Lanka. It would plunge the country into a situation where all will be losers. Clearly, such a scenario should be avoided, for, nothing would be gained by bartering away the national interest.

Rather than rush to conclusions, we believe the CEB trade unions should pause more than awhile and give the Government's reorganisation plans a try. Dogmatism in issues such as these just wouldn't pay.

Whereas the interests of workers should be safeguarded by the State, every effort should be made to solve our problems on the basis of common sense and wisdom.

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