Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers to go on strike against bill to amend Sri Lanka Electricity Act

The Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers Union (CEBEU) has announced that it will move for an indefinite strike from midnight today (June 08).

The CEBEU noted that the strike is against the Bill gazetted on April 29, 2022 to amend the Sri Lanka Electricity Act No. 20 of 2009 (as amended by Act No. 31 of 2013).

The proposed deceitful amendments to the Electricity Act without having proper and adequate consultations with all relevant stakeholders, are aimed to abolish entirely the competitive bidding process for procurement of electricity from the private sector which ensures the least cost as per the existing Act.

“A team of corrupt individuals has employed a cunning strategy abusing the Act through these proposed amendments to secure large scale solar, wind and other kinds of power generation projects which are to be implemented in future among their interested business partners at their will without having any competitive bidding process and incurring huge adverse impact to the national economy while they being profited exorbitantly,” it added.

CEBEU vehemently rejects the proposed deceitful amendments to the Sri Lanka Electricity Act which lead in depriving the right of the general public in having electricity at the least cost.

The CEB Engineers have made the following demands:

1. To withdraw proposed amendments to the Sri Lanka Electricity Act No. 20 of 2009 (as amended by the Act No. 31 of 2013), gazetted on April 29, 2022, with immediate effect.

2. To stop handing over of the country’s wind & solar resources to Adani Group (paying in dollars) without following the competitive bidding process.

3. To stop driving the CEB to privatisation in the guise of reforming.

4. To appoint a suitable professional with unblemished character to the Post of Chairman, CEB without further delay.