The Electricity Consumers Association has alleged that three institutions have confirmed that the calculations in the cabinet paper related to the proposed Sahasdanavi power plant are misleading and inaccurate.
Speaking to The Morning newspaper, the association’s General Secretary Sanjeewa Dhammika has said that the Secretary to the Ministry of Energy, Professor Udayanga Hemapala, should take responsibility for misleading the cabinet and resign immediately.
“The Public Utilities Commission has calculated the cost of a unit of electricity when using LNG as Rs. 43.25.
The Lanka Electricity Board has calculated it as Rs. 37.
The Sahasdanavi company has stated in a press release that the cost of a unit is Rs. 39.63 when capital expenditure is included.
However, the relevant cabinet paper is completely different from these figures,” he said.
He also points out that the annual capacity fee for the proposed power plant is 15 billion rupees, so the price of electricity for every electricity consumer will increase by one rupee per unit.
Therefore, the government should immediately review this cabinet decision and suspend it, and Sanjeewa Dhammika alleges that the engineers preparing the cabinet paper have deliberately omitted key cost factors.
He also says that although four criteria are required to calculate the actual cost of generation, only two types of costs have been included, excluding the cost of restarting the power plant (start-up cost) and the operation and maintenance costs (O&M).
Calling this agreement the biggest fraud in recent times, he also questions the silence of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption in this regard.
He also says that there is no point in talking about corruption after the damage has been done.