Shocking behaviour by politicos; CEB disconnects Devananda’s connection

It is no wonder why there has been a popular belief among the people that there are two laws in the country--one for common folks and another for politicians and their cronies whose survival is dependent on state resources.

An example would be how many politicians, including some Cabinet Ministers, failed to settle utility bills, with total outstanding amounts of millions of rupees over the years. But they continue to enjoy all perks and privileges without facing consequences while ordinary citizens would be served a Red Notice for outstanding bills of more than Rs 5000 and face the danger of connection being cut within weeks to make the payment on time.

The latest example is how Fisheries Minister Douglas Devananda dodged electricity payments to the debt ridden Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) for years at his office in Jaffna-Srithar theatre, a one time cinema hall in the town--with a total outstanding bill of Rs 8,550,982.50 from November 1998 till November 2014. However, his office took steps to pay utility bills from December 2014 onwards, but arrears are yet to be cleared.

Despite many written instructions being given in the past to make the payments, no attempts were made to settle the outstanding bills. Finally, the local CEB team had to disconnect the line to his office this week.

It was revealed that the CEB had incurred a massive loss of Rs. 44.31 billion in the third quarter of this year (from July to September) compared to a loss of Rs. 21.45 billion during the same period last year, due to high costs for fuel and coal along with operational expenditure, according to the latest CEB financial statement.

Maybe it was time for the CEB to go after high profile utility bill dodgers and their cronies rather than targeting the poor people in villages who, these days, were conscious of their electricity usage considering the recently introduced sharp increase in tariffs.