Furnish details of malpractices :

CEB Engineers’ Union tells accusers

Chaminda PERERA

The Ceylon Electricity Board Engineer’s Union yesterday called on those who accuse the CEB management of corruption to furnish details of such malpractices adding the Union is ready to extend its fullest cooperation to take stern action against the culprits in the Board.

According to Union President Nandika Pathirage, few trade unions in the CEB with handful of members are involved in a desperate attempt to attract public attention by making allegations that CEB officials are corrupt and malpractices are raging in the Board.

“The CEB is reporting to the Committee on Public Enterprise and the Parliament too. The management has never allowed corrupt individuals to go scott free and disciplinary action has been taken against them, he said. “Those who accuse the CEB of corruption, should come with evidence and we are ready to deal with them”, he said.

Pathirage refuted the media reports that Board is not properly audited. He added that the CEB comes under the scrutiny of Auditor General’s Department as other public entities in the country.

Addressing a press conference at Kingsbury Hotel yesterday, he said that the CEB’s expenditure exceeds Rs. 256 billion though it earns only Rs. 178 billion in form of electricity tariffs a year.

An 80 per cent of total expenditure is spent for oil purchases, he said and added that the Board incurs a loss of Rs. 78 billion every year and there should be a mechanism to avert this loss.

Pathirage was of the view that the CEB will incur a loss of Rs. 33 billion even after the proposed power tariff hike. Pathirage is hopeful that the second phase of Norochcholai power project will add 600MW of power to the national grid further reducing this loss to the CEB.

The Union President added that the country should go for low cost power generation as power generation using fuel is costly.

The Union President rejected the accusation that CEB continue to purchase power from mini scale power generators at higher rate. He

said the government buys electricity from private sector under a price formula approved by the Cabinet.

Pathirage said the government purchases a unit of electricity from private sector at comparatively higher rate for the first few years to cover up the initial investment and later the price would decline.