The Hon. Rauff Hakeem, Attorney-at-Law

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, I am also using the time of Hon. M. S. Abdul Saboor.

¶ 02 Listening to Government Members on this Bill reminds me of the fable of the blind man grasping an elephant’s leg and calling it a pestle. Similarly contradictory narratives abound. In the Oversight Committee, it was stated—even by the Chair—that Mr. Pubudu Niroshan had said the two-year unbundling timeline was cut to one year. Members say one thing; the official says another. There is no Ranjan Jayalal today to lead protests; while activists are otherwise engaged, we have serious doubts about the Government’s conduct.

¶ 03 I must say, in the difficult recovery from a sovereign debt crisis, we face an unprecedented existential threat. In this midst, legally unbundling the CEB’s core functions and pushing a more competitive, transparent market would attract private capital and enhance efficiency—critical to recovery and energy security. That would be a landmark step.

¶ 04 But now we are reversing the earlier process by reconsolidating generation, transmission and distribution under 100% State control, entrenching inefficiencies, deterring private investment and straining public finances. The CEB’s losses and infrastructure needs are fiscally unsustainable, undermining creditworthiness and access to affordable capital.

¶ 05 Unbundling globally improved efficiency, transparency and service delivery when paired with competitive tenders and strong regulation. Instead, we are crippling the regulator by bringing Finance Ministry supervision into PUCSL’s functions.

¶ 06 Let me quote from the Daily FT article, “Sri Lanka’s Electricity Amendment Bill 2025: Trojan Horse for national economic collapse”: “The National People’s Power Government rose to power promising transparency, institutional reform and a green energy revolution... Yet, the Electricity Amendment Bill 2025 delivers the opposite. It entrenches ministerial control, resurrects monopolies, enables corruption, and locks the nation into decades of coal dependence...”

¶ 07 On the 2025 tariff revision for SPPA projects up to 10 MW: pegging solar equity returns at 11.47% (the 10-year T-bond) gives zero risk premium. Global practice gives 3%-5% over risk-free. Why are we penalizing small, distributed renewables with rupee-returns while allowing dollar-pegged tariffs for projects above 10 MW? This is structural discrimination.

¶ 08 On governance: Prof. Udayanga Hemapala, an efficient official known to me, is CEB Chairman and will also chair LTL. The Government must investigate how former public servants became shareholders of the LTL cartel—were fair considerations paid or were they beneficiaries of a procurement-mafia scheme controlling the CEB? Parliament should request the subject Minister and the President to appoint a high-powered, conflict-free committee to unravel cross-shareholdings and ascertain the net worth of former public servants’ stakes. There are hidden employees’ trust companies. We saw an IPO of nearly Rs. 20 billion; the entity’s worth now exceeds Rs. 100 billion. How do a few former public servants hold such stakes? The LTL Chairman should initiate an inquiry and inform the public.

¶ 09 Thank you.