The Hon. Dayasiri Jayasekara, Attorney-at-Law

¶ 01 Hon. Minister, this is not a personal issue between you and me. Please tell the CEB that even their 2023 annual report is still not on the website. I tried hard to find it. This is not personal. If CEB officials work like this, how does the country move forward?

¶ 02 From the Final Budget Position Report (Annual Report) 2023, I quote: “Even though the cost recovery tariff is being implemented since 2022 and the balance sheet was restructured through the transfer of CEB debt to the Government Balance Sheet with the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers, the General Treasury made an equity investment of Rs. 126.3 billion in 2023 as a cross settlement mechanism to settle the long outstanding payable to CPC and Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to further strengthen the balance sheet of CEB. As a result, the debt outstanding to CPC and IPPs stood as Rs. 78.4 billion at the end of 2023, a decline from Rs. 191.8 billion at the end of 2022.”

¶ 03 Hon. Speaker, Ministers answer here trusting officials supplied correct information. When checked, the information is false. These are not my numbers; they are from reports tabled in Parliament. Therefore, I respectfully request that the CEB Chairman and responsible officials who provided these figures be summoned before the Committee on Ethics and Privileges. Otherwise this will not stop. Every Minister is affected; such false figures cause Ministers embarrassment in this House. Let us establish who erred and who provided wrong information. Thank you for the time.