More Power To Them, No Power To Us?
Uditha Devapriya
When you have so many planners but very few doers in power, this is what happens. Last week was the second or third of what was promised to be a month-long series of rolling power cuts. The Minister in charge, Ravi Karunanayake, has publicly gone on record claiming that the blame game (a reference to the tussle between the Engineers of the CEB and the Public Utilities Commission) must cease, and that, “God willing” (whatever His faith, may He be beneficent!), the rains will come by May. In any case, according to him the problem will be fully resolved by Avurudu or Vesak (he didn’t specify). He has, moreover, asked for our forgiveness.
And of course, the emergency power purchases are back. More than 500 MWs of power are to be added to the National Grid, with a couple or so power plant proposals being looked into and, possibly, approved. As of the time this piece was being written the government was in talks with Turkey to (literally) bring in about 500 to 600 MWs of barge mounted power. “Turkey is very happy,” the Minister tells us; whether or not Turkey is happy does not, however, seem to be the issue: as the JVP has pointed out, attempts are being made “to generate power through ships without paying taxes and show a lower number.” Karunanayake attributes 65% of the blame to the politicians, though the people think, justifiably, that that’s too low a figure.
There are so many things wrong with what was done, but I’ll get down to the bare essentials, the basics. First and foremost, there’s that schedule. We were promised the same routine (in the name of equality, I presume): three hours when the sun is up, one hour when the sun is down. Forget the fact that the schedule was announced long after it was implemented (and that it compelled the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Power and Energy, Sulakshana Jayawardena, to almost resign). Forget the fact that the CEB officials themselves, when contacted, had no clue whether they had imposed the cuts because of the Norochcholai issue or of the lack of rainfall.
What’s infuriating is the fact that the CEB itself didn’t seem to be doing a good job of spreading the blackouts within the country. This is not just about Colombo not, at least until recently, experiencing power cuts. This is about some areas, outside the suburbs of Colombo that is, having had to undergo power cuts amounting to even six hours a day. But even if one discounts it on the basis that the cuts were necessary to preserve what little power the electricity sector (and government) had, what could exonerate the decision to keep the capital out of the dark?
Sure, there’s talk about Colombo running on “self-generation” (which adds costs and can raise tariffs if implemented elsewhere), but I don’t imagine that to be a convincing argument to make to hundreds of thousands of outside-Colombo folks, drudging in the heat and dust of April in poorly maintained trains and buses to their places of work, who see switched on streetlights in Union Place at eight in the morning.
Until Thursday of last week, Colombo was immune from these blackouts; I assume, and not without reason, that it was the anger of the public that compelled the regime to extend the blackouts. I won’t even get started on the people’s perception of Colombo being the stronghold of the government, or one Minister’s remark that Colombo was the heart of the UNP, which heads it. But then people remember.
That’s just one issue, and it has got the attention, the fury, and the contempt it rightly deserves. There’s another issue: along with the capital city, the government had, going by reports and press releases, decided to immunise the Free Trade Export Processing Zones across the country from the outages.
No one with any level of knowledge about economics and the economic history of this country can discount the “need” for Foreign Direct Investments. No one can deny the benefits which, theoretically at least, are to be obtained by facilitating access to prime lands and exempting FDI financed export-oriented enterprises from taxes and other daily hindrances (which the power outages have, as of now, become). For meaningful investments, we need to buckle up and let these enterprises take away from our land and give back to us. Some would call it theft, and I wouldn’t disagree, but unless and until someone comes up with an alternative we need to watch and accept.
