Parliamentary Council approves new PUCSL commissioners

• New member names amidst speculation over fate of power sector regulatory body
• Previous commissioners resigned last Dec. on request of Treasury Secy
• Govt. aims to scale-down powers of PUCSL and amend related legislation

The Parliamentary Council yesterday approved new members to the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), the regulatory body for the electricity and power sector, naming Janaka Ratnayake as Chairman.

Its other members are Chathurika Wijesinghe, Mohan Samaranayake, Udeni Wickramasinghe and Prof. Janaka Ekanayake.

Parliament sources said that a majority of the members on the five-member Council approved the name but did not say who opposed the appointments.

The PC is headed by Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena and its two ex-officio members are Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa. Its two other members are Minister Douglas Devananda and SJB MP Kabir Hashim.

The new appointments to PUCSL comes amidst speculation over the future of the economic, technical and safety regulator of the electricity industry in Sri Lanka and the designated regulator for petroleum and water services industries.

All five previous commissioners of PUCSL headed by Prof. Kithsiri Liyanage resigned last December after they were asked to do so by Treasury Secretary S.R. Attygalle.

Prior to their resignation, Secretary to the President Dr. P.B. Jayasundera had written to Treasury Secretary Attygalle asking him to take necessary procedural steps to close down the PUCSL and take the necessary steps to absorb the technical staff to the Department of Planning and the Ministry of Power.

Since then, the Government has said it has no plans to wind up PUCSL but wants to limit its powers and Cabinet has given approval to amend the PUCSL Act following a proposal given by Prime Minister Rajapaksa. 

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in his Budget Speech in November said the Government proposes to amend the Public Utilities Commission Act and Ceylon Electricity Board Act to allow the rapid implementation of projects. However, the PUCSL has denied it delayed any projects and has insisted it worked to save billion in public funds from being used for unnecessary emergency power purchases. 

Industry experts have warned that Sri Lanka could lose crucial funding, especially from multilateral organisations such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) if it decides to wind down the regulator and have less transparency on the functions of power generator Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), which is a State monopoly. Renewable energy operators have also insisted a stronger PUCSL is essential to create a level playing field needed to scale-up renewables including solar.