CEB reforms an absolute imperative

FEW institutions in Sri Lanka symbolise inefficiency and economic vulnerability as starkly as the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB).

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With a workforce of more than 26,000, the CEB is one of the largest state-owned enterprises in the country, and unfortunately, one of the most loss-making.

Alongside the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and SriLankan Airlines, the CEB has been a central contributor to the unsustainable financial haemorrhaging that culminated in the economic collapse and bankruptcy in 2022. Unless bold reforms are undertaken, the CEB threatens to drag the economy back into crisis.

For decades, the CEB has operated as a monopoly, shielded from both accountability and competition. Its bloated workforce, inefficiencies in power generation, poor management practices, and heavy reliance on costly thermal power have combined to saddle the Board with losses that are now unsustainable. Year after year, it has borrowed heavily to cover deficits, with taxpayers ultimately footing the bill. It is not merely an inefficient State entity but a structural risk to the entire economy.