Sunday Times 2
Steamy Sunday’s blackout cooks Government’s goose
View(s):- Nation’s outrage over third nationwide power outage in 6 months
- President: ‘Officials ignored power crisis warning months before’
Phew! What a scorcher. If the prevailing drought driven heat wave was not enough to boil tempers in a greasy sweat, the record breaking nationwide power failure last Sunday afternoon compounded the torrid crisis to send temperatures soaring way up high, enough to make an egg hopper and even cook the government’s goose.
CANDLELIGHT DINNERS BUT NO ROMANTIC GLOW: People tucking in to the meals at a wayside eating house light denied. Pic by Amila Gamage
Billed as the longest power outage in over twenty years, public anger broke out in a mass sweat of outrage over the failure of the government to provide a constant supply of electricity, long come to be held as an essential service and long taken for granted as available on tap 24/7. It was the third major nationwide power blackout within six months and lasted for over twenty hours in some areas and even threatened to disrupt the nation’s water supply.
The last nationwide blackout occurred just 17 days ago. The committee appointed by the government to inquire into the February 25th power failure is still to issue its report, its tardiness revealing the nonchalance with which the government has so far viewed this most important of sectors and which, perhaps, is the single most important reason that led to Blackout Sunday.
Even before the fans began to whirl proper after power was finally restored, the knives were out neck hunting for the sacrificial lambs. The first to lay his neck on the block was the chairman of the 350 billion loss making Ceylon Electricity Board, Anura Wijeyapala who creditably offered to resign the moment the situation returned to normal. “I’m taking the responsibility for the three power failures and will resign after restoring power,” Wijeyapala said, demonstrating that the practise of meaningful accountability, taking responsibility and resigning unasked still exists among public officials even though the concept, though much hailed on political platforms, has ceased to dwell amidst their political masters.
However, lest it becomes endemic perhaps, his resignation was refused by Power and Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya who, according to the joint opposition’s demand, should have offered his neck instead. But to firebrand Wimal Weerawansa even Siyambalapitiya’s thick neck would not do. With sidekick Gammanpila wagging his agreement, Weerawansa wanted the necks of the entire government wrung like a chicken’s to atone for the restless suffering the nation experienced on Sabbath Sunday. “This is a failed government which has disappointed people and it must go,” he thundered at a media conference the following day.
But Minister Siyambalapitiya would have none of this resignation babble. After, all, the question of responsibility only arises when an existent duty of care is breached by one’s negligence. An act of God or an act caused by forces outside the ambit of one’s control which results in damage will be a sufficient neck saving defence. Just over two weeks ago on February 25th when Lanka experienced her second nationwide power blackout within six months, the Minister had blamed it on lighting – an act of God beyond human control, though one might ask why power stations are not protected by lightning conductors.
On February 26, the day after the second nationwide power failure, the Minister had then stated that it was not due to sabotage but that the breakdown had been triggered by a bolt of lightning striking the main line that transmits electricity from Polpitiya to Kolonnawa.
“The lightning resulted from the unusual weather conditions that prevailed on Thursday afternoon accompanied by thunder showers and tornadoes that wreaked havoc in many parts of the country,” the minister had said. “This el-Niño weather phenomenon is capable of wreaking havoc. I cannot say it will not happen again. Our preliminary investigations have revealed that a lightning strike during the adverse weather condition was the cause of this major power outage.”
But even though the old myth ‘lighting does not strike the same place twice’ has now been proved false, and the same el-Niño excuse could have been recycled and used again this time too, no doubt Minister Siyambalapitiya felt more comfortable and thought it more credible to blame ‘sabotage’ instead of lightning this third time round for the shutdown, even whilst those engineers around him at the CEB were at their wits end still probing in the dark to figure out its possible cause.
But whatever may have been the minister’s diagnosis, the secretary to Power and Renewable Energy Ministry Dr. Suren Batagoda had a different opinion. He said that “tripping of substation at Biyagama may have caused Sunday’s countywide power outage.” So did the CEB Engineers’. Union President Athula Wanniarchchi. Issuing a statement on Monday, he ruled out sabotage and said the transformer which had exploded at the Biyagama Grid Substation was 30 years old. The CEB chairman Anura Wijeyapala also was of the view that it could not be an act of sabotage but that it could be a technical problem. “However,” he added, “we are conducting an internal investigation as well as an investigation involving the police to find the real cause of the blast.”
It is true that the power failure coming as it did five days before the planned joint opposition rally could have been an act of sabotage. If it wasn’t, it was indeed a heaven sent bolt from the blue for the joint opposition, giving them a justifiable platform to launch their ‘Janatha Satana’ against a government which had failed to deliver a basic indispensable service. It ignited anti government fury, fuelled new life to a comatose joint opposition; and, with the entire nation bathed in sweat, found a rallying point to express public outrage. If it was coincidence, it was a miracle. If it was sabotage, it was diabolically brilliant.
It certainly provided the opportunity to enable Mahinda Rajapaksa whom the people had thrown out of office not even 15 months ago to pompously declare on the joint opposition stage on Thursday, “If you can’t run the country, give it to me to run,’ as if Lanka was the personal property of the incumbent president to be handed over to anyone as he wished. Perhaps it was the natural reaction of the man who ruthlessly ran the country for a decade in the belief that it was actually his and that, after the war victory, the people had transferred their sovereign freehold on the island to him and his family to own and rule the land in perpetuity and sans restraint enjoy with his kith, kin and cronies the fruits of its broad acres at their sole pleasure.
But that does not mean that the present government should naturally assume the power failure to be the devilish work of Rajapaksa saboteurs. Even if it was it does not absolve the government of blame. Providing security to all power stations is the government’s primary responsibility. It not only means guarding the entrances but also involves background checks on all who work at these high security establishments and determining their bona fides. Sending troops after the citadel had been stormed and destroyed from within is not the answer.
Yet Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya has no reason to worry for any lapse on his part, if any. He can continue to have his restful sleep left undisturbed in alpine air, touched only with the sweet of dreams that his important position as the Minister responsible for the nation’s power supply will continue uninterrupted. And it’s all thanks to his personal genie, namely, the Prime Minister who now finds himself called more and more to throw a lifeline to salvage royal flotsam.
Like his colleague at the Finance Ministry fellow Royalist Ravi Karunanayake who found he was fortunate to have the Prime Minister as his guardian angel to clean up the mess he made with his maiden budget in November, so did UPFA MP, Minister Siyambalapitiya discover he too possessed the same blessings, protection and instant succour of the self same guardian angel fellow Royalist Ranil Wickremesinghe at his beck and call – 2 b sumond da momnt a ‘save my skin’ (SMS) is txt via sms on mp 2 pm.
On Monday the Prime Minister had to step forth to the limelight again to assure the nation that whether the power failure was due to lightning, sabotage, technical fault or downright negligence, it will not happen again. In a special statement, he first expressed to the nation his government’s regrets over ‘the severe inconvenience’ and the many ‘hardships the people had to face’ as a result of blackout No 3.
In his statement of assurance he declared “The government had long-term and short-term plans to provide a continuous electricity supply to the people. The government would implement necessary changes through reorganising and restructuring to achieve those goals. I held discussions with President Maithripala Sirisena, the Cabinet of Ministers and deputy ministers and I chaired a special meeting yesterday afternoon. A decision was arrived at to take necessary steps to avoid such a situation. It was resolved at yesterday’s meeting to take concrete steps to avoid such situations in the future and have long term plans.”
This same assurance was echoed by Deputy Power and Energy Minister Ajith P. Perera on Thursday who stated that an inquiry will be held to find out what went wrong but added that the question as to who was responsible need not be probed now. Why not? Is it unreasonable for the public to ask and receive answer as to who was ‘tripping the light fantastic’ while the nation’s lights were being tripped off, fuse by fuse?
Two months ago at the Sri Lanka Economic Forum 2016, with international financier George Soros present, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe unveiled a grandiose plan to make not Colombo but the whole island into one global mega metropolis of the world. He said: “Our objective is to make Sri Lanka the most competitive nation in the Indian Ocean and to develop the island as a mega city for the region that will go between Singapore and Dubai. Sri Lanka would have to take stock of the global economic situation and its own shortcomings and opportunities and would convert the economy into a manufacturing based one.” To the applause of the crowd present, he declared, “the politics is done” and said that the rest of his term will be dedicated to ‘fixing the economy’.
But wasn’t it necessary to have fixed the power sector first before entertaining mega plans based on the assumption that the required electricity, the lifeblood of any modern economy, will be available unimpeded to power grandiose dreams to reality? Volatile as the power sector has always been in this country with demand far exceeding supply coupled with erratic behaviour as demonstrated at the Norocholai Coal Power Plant, shouldn’t there have been a sharper watch cast, a more serious approach adopted and a stricter guard maintained on the basis that eternal vigilance is the price of a continued electricity supply.
Who let the guard down? That is worse than a random act of sabotage. A lack of exercising responsibility places the entire power industry at constant risk of breaking down. On September 4th last year Ranjith Siyambalapitiya was appointed as the power and energy minister. That same month there was a nationwide power failure. Did he not treat it as a wakeup call? Didn’t it spur him to action to find the reasons why and then prevent a repeat performance?
Did it not wise him to conduct a massive inquiry to probe not only the possibility of sabotage but also of the state of the electricity board in general and rectify its shortcomings and thus prepare the necessary grounding for Lanka to attract investors to whom even temporary fluctuations in the power supply, let alone nationwide power failures are anathema and run contrary to their investment plans? Did it not move him to contribute his mite to making his prime minister’s dream come true? Or instead was he content to merely participate in publicity generating events and announce electricity to all by January 2016 as he did in Polonnaruwa on October 26th last year?
Then on Wednesday the President made a startling announcement. It was reported that he had told his cabinet that he was informed on Monday that the government had been aware of a warning issued months ago by a senior engineer at Biyagama Grid Station who had cautioned his superiors of looming power outages unless serious shortcomings were addressed urgently, but it had been ignored. “This serious lapse was brought to my notice on Monday,” the President has said and added an investigation has been ordered.
The president had also mentioned that when power failed at the presidential secretariat he found to his dismay that even the generator was not working and he was left in the dark along with the rest of the nation. He said he thought how embarrassed he would have been if he had a foreign state dignitary in his office at that moment with the nation’s premier executive office without power and without even a generator back up.
The Prime Minister who is fast becoming the man for all reasons and seems to be doing the work of his ministers as well should issue a stern warning to his cabinet that they cannot expect him to come to their aid every time there is a cock up in their respective ministries. Ministers must exercise responsibility. If they fail, they must resign or their resignations must be demanded and accepted. Nothing else would do the trick to keep them on their toes.
For when disasters strike is it enough for the government to merely issue statements of assurances that all steps will henceforth be taken to ensure that it will not happen again? Or is that the new meaning of accountability and responsibility according to the Yahapalana definition?
| Where have all the bluebirds flown? The usual assembled crowds that used to be a regular feature at Mahinda rallies during the presidential campaign last year were faithfully present. But what was conspicuous by its absence at Mahinda’s joint opposition re union rally at Hyde Park on Thursday were the red breasted bluebirds of the mutated satakaya sub species which used to flaunt the Mahinda feather and flock together in large numbers not so long ago. Of course the UPFA bats were there but where indeed had the sixty or so bluebirds that used to berth in the Mahinda nest flown? Had the feeding grounds become so bereft of fruit and nut that many had migrated to greener pastures? And did the remaining few stay only because their wings had been clipped and the clawed legs cut off like what happened to the poor king eagle which had once flown sky high and striven with the Gods in majestic flight? Alas, how times change and how even the best of birds barter their colourful breasts to survive the craggy mounts of politics. But caw! What a cacophony those who remained made in the park, crowing how many MPs had risked banishment from the Garuda led true bluebird flock to search for snails in the new joint alliance of led by their former bird of paradise who had soared too near the sun. | |