Power crisis looms as CEB engineers set to launch trade union action this Friday

„Blames govt. for not intervening in approving LCLTGEP favoured by CEB „Wants ‘experienced and honest’ professionals as energy regulators

Amidst the growing fears of an impending power crisis, the Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers’ Union (CEBEU) has informed the government that the country could experience intermittent power failures and prolonged recovery of such outages, as it will be launching a work-to-rule action this Friday, until its demands are met.

The CEBEU, in a letter addressed to Power and Renewable Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya, said its members would work only during office hours, not be on on-call duty, follow strict safety rules and not take “any risk based on engineering judgement if such risk has the remotest probability of posing a safety violation”, under the work-to-rule campaign.

The trade union, which also includes the top management of the CEB, further said that its members would not sit on tender boards, technical evaluation committees, joint working groups, project groups and special assignments.

The CEBEU said that it would “not be liable to any failure or inconvenience caused to the public, as this action has been taken after giving enough and more time and also taken to avoid a future calamity in the power sector of even greater proportion”.

The CEBEU added that it is taking this action since the government has not intervened to approve the Least Cost Long-term Generation Expansion Plan (LCLTGEP) favoured by the CEB, despite months of lobbying to which the government had responded in a positive light initially.