Electricity reforms and CEB restructure: Confusion, conjecture or calmness?

ELECTRICITY reform is an essential element of Sri Lanka's development effort and economic revival.

- By Dilakshan Seneviratne

It has been an unfulfilled need (amongst many others) for 20 plus years that was ultimately forced on us by the IMF. The previous Government brought in a revised Electricity Act in haste, with minimal consultation. It was progressive, had its merits, with also many inconsistencies and errors which would have created future operational and legal nightmares.

This had to be expected, considering the short time taken to draft and pass the Bill in Parliament. The writer's experience in a developed country like Australia is that such legislation would take close to two years to draft and table in Parliament.

As most power utilities in the world have reformed and restructured since the nineties, one would expect learnings from those experiences might enable the reform process here to be shortened, provided core reform principles and country specific policy objectives are clearly embedded into the legislation. The efforts of the current lot, albeit without much fanfare and a comparatively invisible Minister, has to be appreciated, with respect to standing firm on strategy and timelines.

As a person who has been involved in the current reform process by commenting and subsequent discussions, I have formed the view that the process is going well. This is in spite of the sudden spikes of criticism that emanate mostly from political adversaries, vested interests like the solar lobby, and pseudo experts of whom there are many. An economic pundit so to say, very recently opined about his ability to read the conscience of a transformed leftist mind, in the context of NPP Government reforms.