News
A CEB smokescreen hiding unpalatable facts from consumers
The Deputy General Manager (Business and Operational Strategy) and Media Spokesman of the Ceylon Electricity Board has responded to the Sunday Times front-page lead story of March 30, 2014.
He says in a letter: ‘This article has been written on factually incorrect materials. The Ceylon Electricity Board has not prepared monthly accounts for January, February and March to find out whether there is actual loss or profit. The Ceylon Electricity Board usually prepares annual accounts at the end of a financial year.
Please be kind enough to correct the aforesaid news item and publish the correct details in your newspaper giving the same publicity as for the previous item.
NOTE BY OUR REPORTER: Either the DGM (Business and Operational Strategy) and the CEB spokesman at that is unaware or is for reasons better known to himself trying to sweep the truth under the carpet in what seems a total blackout.
In general terms, it is damning for a State institution like the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), to claim it is unaware until the end of a calendar year how much the institution has earned and how much it has spent. If that is true, nothing more needs to be said about the efficacy of a public institution that dabbles in billions of rupees of taxpayers’ money.
It was only last Sunday, the Sunday Times (Political Commentary) revealed that the Treasury has imposed a policy decision on the CEB from January this year. That is to urge the CEB to carry out all on-going and future electrification programmes from the monies generated (or earned). Does this mean, the CEB has to wait till the annual accounts are ready to discern how much has been generated (or earned), before carrying out development work? Leave alone the CEB, even the smallest petti kadey owners check their income and expenditure at day’s end to see whether they are in for economic doom or not.
Other than that, the DGM and Spokesperson does not explain “what the factually incorrect materials” are and state what they are when he tells us to “publish the correct details.” It would be interesting to know what he claims are the “correct details.” More so when he contradicts himself by claiming that the accounts are ready only at year end. Hence only he will know what he means by “correct details.” Is it because of the embarrassment our revelations have caused to the CEB hierarchy?
All he has to do is contact the CEB’s own Finance Division on whose documents our story was based. It maintains detailed statistics of the number of units sold and from which exact power plant the electricity was generated. The compilation of data continues every week. The Finance Division could easily provide him or his bosses with a daily schedule. Such matters are discussed periodically at management meetings.
It would also be worthwhile to draw his attention to the Ceylon Electricity Board Act of 2002. Under this act, a regulatory body called the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) is established. The PUCSL not only requires the CEB to forward its income and expenditure statements every six months, but is also empowered to raise queries.
Hence, the DGM (B&O) and spokesperson taking umbrage under the words “annual accounts” is laughable. Is it a smokescreen to mislead the public, all of them consumers, who are already suffering from the shock of the last tariff increase?