Editorial

The consequences of the 20th Amendment (20A) to the Constitution that Parliament recently approved with great fanfare and brouhaha from Government members, have, as expected, come to bite the very ones who voluntarily surrendered the powers of Parliament to the Executive Presidency.

Last week, with nary a warning, the Presidential Secretariat wrote to the Secretary to the Treasury asking him to wind up the Public Utilities Commission (PUCSL) post haste. Government Ministers were bypassed. 20A or otherwise, the order was illegal because the PUCSL has a special place in the scheme of administrative things — it has to be dissolved by Parliament and its Commissioners removed only by Parliament.

The seemingly authoritarian move raised a buzz even among Ministers directly engaged with the PUCSL. The Ministers of Power and Energy made some feeble noises, and the Minister for Water wrote to the Prime Minister asking him to defend his turf. Is this the shape of things to come down the road with Ministers — and Parliament, being subjected to overnight fiats from an impatient Executive? This week, the PUCSL Commissioners were reportedly told to resign — or be sacked by 113 MPs. It was Hobson’s Choice as far as the Commissioners were concerned, and so it was; ‘off with their heads’.

The PUCSL was established by an Act of Parliament in 2002 by the then Kumaratunga-Wickremesinghe cohabitation government as a regulatory authority, initially for the entire electricity sector including generation of power and protection of consumers. Pricing, availability, quality, licensing, all of this was to waived by a letter even though the move was opposed in Cabinet by the Ministers concerned.  In most countries, economically developed or not, the power sector has independent regulators. The PUCSL was the ultimate friend of the consumer.

No doubt, the PUCSL has been considered obstructionist by the many lobbies vying for quick contracts. Delays in implementing projects were conveniently landed on the regulator’s doorstep. Only commission agents and politicians who were in charge of these sectors from time to time benefited from quick fix projects — like the Norochcholai coal power plant, at the expense of the whole country.

The PUCSL had insisted on data transparency for the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) making its power generation and costs visible to the public to prevent exploitation of the users. Their recommendations were often ignored and last January’s blackout may have been avoided if these had been acted upon. Fancy projects, like bringing generators in floating barges anchored out harbour to feed consumers were shot down by the PUCSL during the former Yahapalana government. Unnecessary ‘emergency power purchases’ on ‘spot tenders’, a euphemism for making money by ‘power mafias’ by creating artificial shortages of electricity and threats of power cuts were avoided saving the country billions of rupees over the years.

Independent regulators are required to protect the public and investors alike against state monopolies such as the CEB. The lack of such overall supervision increases the risk of future investors.

In the months ahead, Government policy will likely be on the IPP (independent power producer) basis as renewable energy projects are started, just like the one in Mannar this week. Unless a proper documented methodology is followed, audited, and made transparent, these new wind/sun power plants will be forced into curtailment and become loss-making ventures. According to the new Natural Gas Policy to be gazetted, the natural gas downstream regulator was to be the PUCSL. Even electrically charged motor vehicles of the future were to come under its purview.

Think of the Central Bank as the financial sector regulator. Then think of the PUCSL as the utilities regulator. The water sector was also to come under its watchful eye. Think of how many are in the power and energy sector. There are loads of projects lined up. The Attorney General’s advice is dispensed with. The PUCSL was working on LNG (liquid natural gas) and pushing hard for renewable projects.

It has suddenly dawned on the President’s Secretary that he has tried to dismantle the PUCSL the wrong way. The impatience with the logjam of power projects is understandable, but the remedy to have another set of Commissioners rubber-stamp approvals of contracts coming from the Presidential Secretariat is not the answer. Consumers beware of what is in store.

Reopening the borders: Between a rock and a hard place

The Government is clearly in a dilemma, and understandably so, over the question of reopening the country’s borders to tourists.

The economy is in dire straits, and the income from tourism is next to nothing. The industry itself is in the doldrums; only a few hotels eking out an existence as quarantine centres. The travel trade has gone bust and the thousands employed or self-employed in one way or the other in this sector, are jobless.

This week’s announcement in Parliament that the Minuwangoda COVID-19 explosion that triggered the second wave of cases in Sri Lanka had its origins with transmission of the virus from a Ukrainian national to garment factory workers is like a veritable bomb exploding in the face of the tourist industry.

What connections the Ukrainian national had with garment factory workers needs no second guessing, even if it was strenuously claimed that it was by way of secondary contact through the hotel workers. And a former Sri Lankan ambassador now holding a key post in the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) no less, has told the Tourism Ministry that he can bring in thousands of Ukrainians to Sri Lanka.

The State Minister of Primary Health Care, Epidemiology and Coronavirus Disease Control also told Parliament that it was confirmed that the virus now spreading in Sri Lanka is the one that is found in Europe. In Europe itself, there is a ban on British nationals entering the continent as tourists, even as both the UK and Europe struggle to shake off spikes in cases.  But Sri Lanka is getting ready to welcome the England cricket team and their fans in January.

The difficult choice before this Government is whether to reopen the borders to tourists, even if in what they call a “bubble”, or as the former ambassador has suggested “under army guard”, or have that weighed with the protection of the public health of this country’s citizens.

Thousands of Sri Lankans, especially the poorer ones, have been languishing abroad for months awaiting flights to return home. Quarantine centres are filling up with increasing numbers with this cussed second wave. Warnings are galore about having a restricted Christmas season.

The country is witnessing the ferocity with which this second wave has multiplied fatalities and positive cases ten times over in just the last two months. Any third wave can only be catastrophic.