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Allegations against PUCSL: Specificity needed

27 Dec 2020

By Dr. Janaka Ratnasiri   The Minister serving as the Spokesman of the Cabinet, addressing a press briefing held on 22 December 2020 to announce the decisions taken at the Cabinet meeting held on 21 December 2020, said in response to a query by a journalist on the course of action taken against the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), that the Government waited for one year for the Chairman to tender his resignation, allowing the President to appoint a person of his choice, which has been the tradition in the country. But that was not done. He further said that during the past year the Commission has created many problems in the sector and appeared to deliberately work against the Saubhagya Dekma (Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour) policy framework. He also noted that they have received information beyond reasonable doubt that the Commission caused delays in the developmental activities of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB). To say the least, all this is fictitious. Although a cabinet paper has been submitted by the Minister of Finance proposing that the PUCSL Act be amended to fall in line with the country’s requirements as reported in the media, apparently no decision has been taken to approve the proposal, as it is not among the approved list of decisions appearing in the Cabinet’s website. It appears that the matter has only been subject to discussion where the above allegations were levelled against the PUCSL. The Minster had the audacity to come out with these allegations in public, which were supposed to be discussed in confidence, when there is no one present to defend the position of the PUCSL. When the Cabinet makes such open allegations and makes them public, every commission member is deemed guilty, which would reflect badly on their reputation. The least the Minister could do now is divulge details of these allegations; what are the sections in the Saubhagya Dekma framework that the PUCSL has not been working for, what are the instances when the PUCSL blocked the CEB’s developmental activities, including any power projects, and what are the problems the PUCSL created during the last year as alleged by the Minister? Then the public will be able to decide what the truth is and whether the PUCSL was at fault. Here, natural justice has not been exercised, which requires that a person or an institute be given adequate notice and receive a fair and unbiased hearing before a decision is made against the person/institute. If the Government felt that the PUCSL was indeed responsible for the alleged delays in building power plants and implementing generation plans, the logical action the Government should have taken was appoint a competent and unbiased committee to examine the allegations and make recommendations, after having a hearing for the PUCSL’s explanations. If an individual member is found guilty of any misbehaviour, Article 7 of the PUCSL Act spells out the procedure to be followed to remove that member, which requires the concurrence of the Parliament. It is doubtful whether any of the cabinet members are aware of the fact that under Article 2 of the Sri Lanka Electricity Act No. 20 of 2009, the administration of the provisions of the Electricity Act is vested in the PUCSL, and that a holder of a generation or transmission or distribution licence will have to get the approval of the PUCSL for every activity he proposes to undertake. The PUCSL is then required to verify whether such activities are conducted while conforming to the Cabinet-approved Guidelines for the Electricity Industry and other provisions in the Act, before such approval is granted. Thus, with the establishment of the PUCSL, the CEB lost the freedom it enjoyed hitherto to carry on its business the way it liked without any intervention of a regulator. Naturally, when the PUCSL pointed out to the CEB that it is acting in violation of these guidelines and when the CEB is adamant not to follow the directives of the PUCSL, there will be situations of conflict. But the PUCSL cannot be held responsible for such conflicts. In a situation like this, whatever the Government does, has to be done impartially. But here, it has not been so, for whatever reasons. Even this Government, like its predecessor, has demonstrated that it is scared of CEB unions, simply because they possess the switch to the country’s power supply, which they can turn off at any time unless their demands are met. Naturally, any government would like to avoid such a situation at any cost. According to the PUCSL Act, “the members of the Commission shall be persons with ability and integrity and have shown capacity in addressing problems relating to engineering, law, economics, business management, accountancy, or administration”. When such professionals with no political affiliation are appointed to a commission or any statutory board, there is no necessity or obligation for the Chairman or other members to resign when the regime changes, as mentioned by the Minister. Unfortunately, this has been the bane in the country. A minister cannot assume that a statutory body is something he has inherited and that he has the right to appoint only persons of his choice to manage it. It is no secret that in the past many of the public sector organisations failed, leading to their closure or sale to the private sector because of appointment of persons with political affiliations to their boards of management. This writer believes that professionals appointed to statutory bodies should work with the organisation’s and country’s interests in mind, irrespective of who is ruling the country. It is unfortunate that such persons are expected to resign before their tenure is over when a new minister is appointed, even within the same government. This practice should stop forthwith.      (The writer possesses a BSc. (Hons.) in Physics from the University of Ceylon and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois, USA. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, Sri Lanka. He has worked for 30 years as Research Officer in Applied Physics and Electronics at the Ceylon Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research [present Industrial Technology Institute]. He has served in the Ministry of Environment for seven years as Senior Technical Advisor, handling environment-related matters in the energy, transport, and industrial sectors. He has represented the country in many meetings of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change during his tenure at the Ministry)  


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