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CEB Chief slams officials for self-inflicted power crisis
View(s):The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) Chairman has slammed the utility for the current energy crisis, saying it was entirely ‘man-made’, and called for the responsible officers to be punished.
Chairman M.M.C. Ferdinando has also written to Acting General Manager D.C.R. Abeysekara instructing him to buy 300MW of emergency power–the generation capacity of a single unit of the Lakvijaya coal power plant– from the private sector as the electricity shortage reaches dire proportions.
A letter from Mr Ferdinando to Mr Abeysekara on Thursday revealed that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa chaired a meeting on January 24 with the participation of Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, Power Minister Gamini Lokuge, Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila and other officials. Mr Ferdinando had quit midweek but his resignation was not accepted.
“…the requirement to procure emergency power of 300MW immediately to meet the shortfall of the existing generation capacity of the CEB was emphasised and accordingly it was decided to permit the CEB to take immediate action for such procurement to meet the current demand to ensure continuous power supply to the general public without interruption,” the letter states.
Mr Ferdinando requests the Acting GM to take immediate action to call tenders for the procurement of emergency power. He adds: “It is my considered view with documentary evidence that the existing energy shortage of the CEB is a man-made one.”
Among other things, the CEB’s project management unit started implementing a project to build a fourth unit at the Lakvijaya coal power plant in Norochcholai in keeping with Government approval granted in September 2019 and February 2020. But it was later abandoned by the CEB “as a result of the subsequent Government decision in July 2021, mainly due to the non-implementation of the project in time”.
“A significant resource of the CEB has been expended by the CEB during the above process and ended up with no result,” Mr Ferdinando states.
The CEB also lost the opportunity to have its own power plant of 150MW of gas turbines operational at a cost of Rs 25.70 per KWh in October 2020. This would not have happened “if relevant officials acted due diligently [sic], efficiently in a prudent manner”. Additionally, the CEB failed to award the tender for a 300MW combined-cycle power plant at Kerawalapitiya (Sobhadhanavi) on time.
The chairman says he has no objection to proceeding with procurement of emergency power as the CEB had no other option to meet current energy demand “provided that the officers responsible for such delays/cancellations of the above power plants must be made liable and accountable for the wastage of CEB funds and for the cost difference between the cost of power generation of 350MW of energy (150MW gas turbine and 200MW open cycle mode of the combined cycle plant) and the cost of emergency power”.
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