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President rejects Ravi’s power purchase proposal
View(s):A five-member subcommittee headed by President Maithripala Sirsena to re-evaluate Cabinet papers submitted by Power and Energy Minister Ravi Karunanayake on the electricity crisis has decided not to approve the purchase of an additional 200 megawatts of emergency power outside tender process as recommended by the Ministry and some Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) officials.
A quantity of 170mw has already been bought from existing private power producers such as Asia Power in Sapugaskanda, ACE Power in Matara, ACE Power Embilipitiya and Northern Power. Minister Karunanayake and the Ministry along with the CEB maintained that a further quantity of emergency power was needed. And one of the ways they wanted to meet that requirement was through a 200mw barge-mounted plant contracted without tender.
But the subcommittee at a meeting on May 1 decided after heated arguments that there would be no procurement without tender. The subcommittee also includes Mr Karunanayake, Megapolis and Western Development Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka, State Minister of Finance Eran Wickramaratne and Non-Cabinet Economic Reforms and Public Distribution Minister Harsha de Silva.
It also wanted the Power and Energy Ministry to submit a report on the feasibility of the first 200mw barge that was approved by Cabinet on the basis that electricity would be bought at the lowest price and for six months. Minister Karunanayake had wanted a contract of two years.
The report was due on Friday and is expected to demonstrate whether Minister Karunanayake’s claim that the cost of unit of emergency power was going to be Rs 28 (which was the maximum approved by Cabinet) or higher.
This is the second subcommittee to be set up on the matter. Earlier, a three-member ministerial committee which was also tasked with making urgent recommendations to end the power crisis was disbanded after Minister de Silva–who was also a member of that team–wrote to the President threatening to resign after minutes of their meeting were altered by a high-ranking Power and Energy Ministry official.
That committee had specifically recommended the purchase of 200MW of power for six months from a private supplier operating a barge-mounted plant. But the Ministry official had slipped in other barge-mounted power projects after applying tippex. He had also included two different contracts to separate companies for LNG projects, a subject that had not come before the Committee. It was not clear whether the official was acting on his own or at the behest of political masters.
The first subcommittee was headed by Mr Karunanayake and included Highways Minister Kabir Hashim and Minister de Silva. The second one was appointed by President Sirisena after Minister de Silva threatened to resign and brought matters to the notice of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. When it met on May 1, President Sirisena left after maintaining that Mahaweli, Moragahakanda or Rantembe water will not be released for power generation.
The committee looked into a CEB letter that says around 470mw of emergency power is required. Minister Ranawaka reportedly maintained that a further 200mw is sufficient because 170mw has already been secured from existing private power producers. He, too, insisted that there must be a tender to buy this.