Power play over power outage

• PM promises long-term plan to supply uninterrupted power, assures investigation 
• President appoints special ministerial committee from both parties  
• Power Minister says Police also investigating, local and foreign expertise to be sought
• Sabotage not ruled out, Army sent to guard power stations
• Public requested to use electricity with care, more blackouts expected over the next few days

By Himal Kotelawala

Investigations are underway to find those responsible for Sunday’s countrywide power outage, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said yesterday issuing a special statement, while the President ordered the Army to guard power stations and appointed a special ministerial investigative committee in an unprecedented move. 

Wickremesinghe assured the public that, in keeping with the Government’s mandate, priority would be given to finding short- and long-term solutions to providing an uninterrupted power supply to the populace.

A concerned-looking Power and Renewable Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya touring the receiving 

station in Biyagama yesterday

The statement followed discussions the Premier had held with President Maithripala Sirisena, the Minister and Deputy Minister of Power and Energy. Meanwhile Sirisena ordered out the Army to prevent possible acts of sabotage and selected Ministers Ranjith Siyambalapitiya, Ajith Perera, Champika Ranawaka and Susil Premajayantha to a committee to investigate the power failures. 

Apologising to the public on behalf of the Government for any inconvenience caused by the six-hour-long blackout – the longest in 20 years – Wickremesinghe said Minister of Power and Energy Siyambalapitiya was expected to present a full report on the incident to Parliament on 23 March.

“It is the duty of a government to ensure that such a situation doesn’t occur in the future,” he said, adding that it was essential that long-term preventative measures were taken by correctly identifying causes for the status quo.

Among the points raised at the discussions the Prime Minister had with Government officials was that the country was now dealing with the consequences of not having an adequate long-term plan for power generation.

“Several rounds of discussion held before on power generation and distribution revealed that the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) did not have a proper plan that could sufficiently meet present and future challenges. We are currently in the process of formulating a new plan with the assistance of external advisors outside the Board, both local and foreign,” he said.

The Government was elected to power by the people to carry out its mandate, said the Wickremesinghe, adding that he and his Government were committed to make necessary reforms and restructurings to this end.

Meanwhile, Siyambalapitiya who went on an inspection tour of the Biyagama Receiving Station said that he had not ruled out sabotage with regard to Sunday’s unplanned outage and that the Police was carrying out its own investigations into the matter.

“I will not rule out sabotage because the repetition within two or three weeks’ time is quite similar in nature. We have informed the Government analysts and Police to do an investigation,” he told Reuters.

President Sirisena had deployed the Army to protect over 100 power stations connected to the National Grid in the wake of the incident in Biyagama, which reportedly involved an explosion in a transformer at the Biyagama receiving station.

“We requested the President to provide military protection to these key positions and the President has assured us he will provide the required security,” Reuters quoted Minister Siyambalapitiya as saying.

CEB Additional General Manager Corporate Strategy Bandula Tilakasena, speaking to journalists yesterday following the 2016 Consumer Rights Forum organised by the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka, said that he couldn’t confirm nor rule out sabotage until a formal assessment of the incident had been carried out – a process that could take four to five months.

“We have not made any assessment at the moment. Analysing a fault of this kind is a long-drawn process. People might suspect various things. I’m not saying it’s totally technical or whatever. There may be various reasons,” he said.

CEB officials confirmed that more sporadic outages were expected to take place in the coming days until the Norochcholai Power Plant was back in operation and urged the public to be considerate when consuming power.