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| Sunday, 12 June 2005 |
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SAREC assists CEB to tackle power crisis by Shanika Sriyananda Sri Lanka's business community emphasised that the only way out for the present 'acute' energy crisis in the country is the implementation of Electricity Reforms Act of 2002. They joined the South Asian Regional Energy Coalition (SAREC), which brought heads of chambers of commerce, business federations and leading industrialists from Sri Lanka and South Asia to promote reforms of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB). SAREC, which advocates reforms based on the ERA it called for the unbundling of the CEB as well as the empowerment of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). "If fully implemented, the reforms under the EPA would go a long way towards mitigating the political risk that some investors associate with investing in Sri Lanka's power sector, and lead to transparent regulation and better management of the sector", they said at a recent media round table held in Colombo, recently. "The private sector, in concert with the Sri Lankan Government has an obligation to make electricity consumers aware that narrow interests result in everyone losing, most probably the consumer" Country Director for SAREC Lalith Gunaratne said. He pointed out that Sri Lanka had one of the highest per unit electricity costs in Asia and present shortfalls in supply would lead to delays in the implementation of key infrastructure projects. The SAREC Board Directors who said that present power crisis in the country would be a threat to the liberal economic policies committed to by the Government, diverting funds from necessary development projects. The key recommendations of the SAREC are promotion of private public partnership for investment in power sector, empowering the Public Utility Commission to mediate disputes and attend to consumer issues and complaints adequately and fairly, eliminating cross-subsidisation between sectors and taking necessary steps to ensure that utilities gradually improve their operational and financial efficiencies. The SAREC, which has a mission to promote and develop an integrated South Asian energy market to stimulate sustained economic growth and to succeed in the global economic with social responsibility. Meanwhile, the SAREC Board members from the region expressed their support for the country's power sector reforms and they said that reforms would improve power services, accelerate economic development, improve the living standards of the ordinary Sri Lankans and makes various sectors more globally competitive. |
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