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CEB flouts Electricity Act deadline; employees in the dark over placements in new companies
View(s):The Ceylon Electricity Board management has failed to inform its employees before a legally mandated deadline which of the 12 companies they would be assigned to when the utility is unbundled under the new Sri Lanka Electricity Act.
The law says that the management must give all CEB employees this information within four months of the date of enactment of the Sri Lanka Electricity Act No. 24 of 2024. This deadline passed on October 27 this year.
In a letter sent to employees on October 25—two days before that deadline—CEB General Manager K.G.R.F. Comester has said that the Power and Energy Ministry secretary has informed him that several amendments are due to be introduced in the new Parliament summoned after November 21 under the purview of the Power and Energy Minister.
These amendments are expected to result in structural changes to the CEB’s successor companies as listed in Annexure 1 of the new law, he states. The Ministry Secretary is expected to appoint an expert committee to carry out wide stakeholder consultations and rapidly finalise these amendments. Mr. Comester has assured employees that he will convey information about the anticipated structural change to them in the future.
However, the Electricity Act does not provide for the implementation of the relevant provision to be delayed.
“They cannot hold back the execution of the law in anticipation of future legal changes that may or may not happen,” a power sector source said.
The CEB is to be carved up into 12 new companies under the law, with four companies for generation, two for transmission, five for distribution, and one for the provident fund. The new government has, however, been speaking of creating yet another company—a holding entity—through an amendment.
Meanwhile, the government has appointed CEB Director Pubudu Niroshan Hedigallage as Director General to head the Power Sector Reforms Secretariat (PSRS) under the Power and Energy Ministry. A key private sector player in the electricity sector, he replaces Dr. Pradeep Perera, an electrical engineer and a former Energy Specialist at the Asian Development Bank.
The PSRS is looking at amendments, one of which would be to place full ownership of a proposed transmission company with the government (the law places state ownership at 51 percent). Another is to set up an additional company.
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