A Cabinet Minister is pressurising the Government into giving the Lanka Indian Oil Company (LIOC) a contract to supply the Chunnakam power plant with heavy oil overlooking the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) which has the capacity to do so, claim CPC trade unionists.
The CPC currently supplies over 100,000 litres of heavy oil to the Chunnakam plant each day but trade unionists claimed that the Government was looking to help bring LIOC into the fray by offering a supply contract under the influence of interested parties within the Government.
Ceylon Petroleum Common Services Union media secretary D.J. Rajakaruna said the CPC had the capacity to provide the necessary fuel to the power plant as it does for the rest of the plants in the country.
He said that this move would harm the CPC’s revenue stream as well as help a foreign company become a direct competitor which may be able to lure the Government into accepting more contracts.
Power and Energy Ministry Secretary M.M.C. Ferdinando said that there were many private companies under contract to the Government, providing power to the North.
“Companies like Northern Power Pvt. Ltd (NPPL), Koolair and Agrico are under contract to provide certain quotas of power,” he said.
He said that the Government was only purchasing fuel from the CPC whereas it did not have the power to compel the private companies to purchase their fuel from the Government-run institution.
“We are not concerned about the source of their fuel as long as they make sure that they generate the quantities of power agreed upon in the contracts,” he said.
However, the Northern region has been subject to many power failures and power cuts over the past few months for which Mr. Ferdinando blamed some of the private companies. |
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