Gas blasts: What’s cooking?

When gas cylinders and appliances started catching fire in 2021, then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, set up a committee of scientific experts to determine the causes and to recommend solutions. They produced a report in 20 days and handed it over to the Presidential Secretariat. It was not made public.

Six months later, the Sunday Times filed a request under the Right to Information (RTI) Act requesting the report. Our contention was that its findings were a matter of public safety. Within a few weeks between November and December 2021, the police had counted nearly 800 incidents.

The Presidential Secretariat, still under the control of President Rajapaksa, refused to release the report citing an ongoing investigation. This is a common excuse for turning down requests under RTI, even when there’s no evidence of an investigation or its outcome.

When the President changed, a fresh application was made for the report under RTI. This time it was rejected saying the Secretariat didn’t have the document (there was photographic evidence of it being presented to President Rajapaksa). On appeal, the relevant officer confirmed verbally that the report was “not there”. The Presidential Secretariat launched a search and it was eventually released only after a copy was obtained from the head of the committee. Extracts from the report were published by us last week.

It’s safe to surmise this happens with many reports produced by the many Presidential committees and Commissions of Inquiry. Not only do they gather dust, they go missing. It is an all too frequent occurrence and the public is not privy to their contents, despite taxpayer money having been spent on them and the subject matter of most such reports, if not all, being of pressing public interest.

And what about accountability for the gas incidents? The report clearly states the fires and explosions were caused by a change in the composition of the gas which caused a build-up of pressure that appliances in the market were not geared to handle. Consumers had not been forewarned.

There has been no valuation of losses – not even an attempt towards it. No arrests and no compensation. There is no proper regulator. As usual, the official apparatus has proved that anything goes; all is soon forgotten, even if not forgiven.