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‘Work to Rule’ in two weeks if Govt. apathy persists: CEBEU
The Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers’ Union (CEBEU) warns that power failures and unscheduled power-cuts can be expected, if it goes ahead with its planned ‘Work to Rule’ campaign in two weeks time.
The ‘Work to Rule’ campaign comes after the CEBEU’s executive committee decided on Friday (23) to intensify its trade union (TU) action over what it claims is Government apathy to resolve the controversy regarding the country’s long term power generation plan. Accordingly, the Union has given the Government a two-week deadline to resolve the issue.
The Least Cost Long Term Generation Expansion Plan (LCLTGEP) 2018-2037, has been the centre of a nearly year-long dispute between the CEB and power sector regulator, the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL).
The CEBEU claims the regulator had approved its own plan by “illegally” casting aside the plan submitted by the Board. The Union insists that only the CEB has the legal right and expertise to formulate the LCLTGEP.
The PUCSL dismisses these accusations, insisting it approved one of the scenarios submitted by the CEB itself, after its own analysis proved it was cheaper than the plan the CEB recommended. The dispute earlier resulted in the engineers refusing to serve in Technical Evaluation Committees (TEC) appointed to evaluate bids for power purchases.
In a letter to Power & Renewable Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya on Friday (23), the Union stressed that, if this situation continues further, without a solution, there is no doubt the power sector will be adversely affected, and things will go from bad to worse.
“Given the poor response of the Government to our requests and demands to settle the issue, the CEBEU has decided to resort to more stringent TU actions which will have adverse repercussions on the whole industry as well as the country.
These actions may give rise to power failures of different degrees, power shortages, unscheduled power-cuts, delays in power plant procurements, delays in national development programmes etc.” states the letter signed by the union’s secretary.
In its letter, the Union claims the above actions are taken in good faith “to avoid greater damage to the power sector and the country as a whole.”