Economizing power
President Mahinda
Rajapaksa has shot down a recommendation of the Public Utilities
Commission to raise electricity tariffs by eight percent on all
those consuming more than 90 units of electricity a month from
January next year. Instead he has directed that this threshold
be raised to 120 units. According to the CEB only 400,000 out of
the total 4.6 million consumers use more than 120 units a month.
Hence the relief will accrue to more than 4.2 million consumers
by this Presidential decision.
The President no doubt has taken into consideration the cost
of living burden on the general public at present not wishing to
add to it. It is well known that even the average consumer
exceeds 90 units a month especially those using refrigerators.
As is well known a refrigerator is no longer a luxury and like
the television is a permanent fixture in any household. Hence an
across the board increase would have affected the public at
large exacerbating the high cost of living.
Now that they have been granted this concession the public
for their part should be made to act with a degree of
responsibility. They should be enjoined to avoid waste and
conserve electricity wherever possible. We are compelled to
mention this because so far all conservation programs undertaken
by the Government does not seem to have had the desired results
judging by the rising graph of electricity use even by the
average consumer as shown in recent CEB statistics.
True, increased industrial activity and stepped up
development may be guzzling up power on an unprecedented scale.
Hopefully with the commissioning of the Norachcholai and other
mega power projects early next year the CEB may be able to
absorb this demand. Yet with a hugely spoiled gadget oriented
new generation power demands are bound to escalate even with all
this power schemes if some sort of discipline is not enforced.
The biggest culprits in this regard are the Government
institutions. Any visitor to a Government Department today will
confront the all too common site of fans rotating at full blast
over vacant seats or Air-conditioners operating at full throttle
in untenanted office areas. Some time ago during a severe
drought a former Government ordered all State institutions to
switch off Air-conditioners or operate them only at specific
times. Such a remedy should be contemplated if this
laissez-faire attitude keeps continuing.
There is also a responsibility cast on those who are entitled
to this relief not to abuse the concession by exceeding their
average power consumption willfully. For, there is now a
likelihood of those who consumed even less than 90 units a month
to go beyond this limit taking advantage of the concession. They
should be made to understand that they are being subsidized not
only by the State but also by those who are paying the enhanced
monthly bill.
For the rationale of the CEB in increasing tariffs across the
board is to bail itself out of its current financial quagmire
and thus would go all out to collect the targeted sum from those
using in excess of 120 units. It is therefore unfair to make
this segment pay for the excesses of others. The CEB should
devise a means of ascertaining if this concession is being
abused in the long-term and come up with some counter measure.
The CEB for its part cannot blame subsidized electricity
alone for its recurrent losses. It is no secret that
mismanagement is part of the malaise. The CEB like all other
Government institutions is grossly overstaffed and unproductive
salaries and wages consume the bulk of its turn over. This is
something that the CEB cannot afford to continue with if the
Minister's ambition to make it a profit making institution by
next year is to be realized. There is an urgent need for
trimming the fat and the Minister should stand up and say a firm
no to mass political appointments once the proposed reform plans
are put in motion.
The country has taken off on a massive post war development
drive in which the power sector will have to play a key role.
There is no gainsaying that we need foreign investors to come
here and open up enterprises if the economy is to grow. Many
such investment projects are in the pipeline and it is vitally
important to make such investments viable for the foreign
collaborators if we are to keep them here for any length of
time.
It is a common complaint with investors that Sri Lanka has
the highest electricity costs in the region which is one of the
key reasons which drove away many a prospective investor in the
past. We cannot afford to let this happen any more at a time the
country is on the verge of re-building her war battered economy
where foreign investments is a sine quo non.
There is therefore a need for the Government to provide
electricity at cheaper costs so that investors will feel secure
of their investments. The CEB will thus have to ensure that it
will be up to this challenge by doing everything possible to
bring down electricity costs and place itself as a worthy
partner in the country's development program. |