The Hon. Kumara Jayakody
Hon. Kumara Jayakody said the Rs. 10 billion required for the CEB voluntary retirement scheme would be paid by the Treasury and not included in electricity tariffs, and that other costs such as cyclone losses and coal-related losses were also not in the CEB’s tariff note from 1 April. He rejected claims of an impending 20 per cent tariff increase, stating that the PUCSL would determine any adjustment, and argued that the Government was acting to avoid burdening consumers. He also said the Government was addressing alleged vested interests in the energy sector and had awarded 160 MW of battery energy storage systems, with a further 300 MW planned for the year.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, starting where Hon. Ravi Karunanayake began: the approximately Rs. 10 billion required for the CEB’s VRS is not being put into the tariff. The Treasury will pay it. Do not fear—we will not load everything on the people as your Governments did. It was your Governments that were under the oil mafia; there is even a solar mafia here. We are breaking those mafias. We will not burden the people.
¶ 02 Do not create panic about the next quarter. The CEB has already published its explanatory note from 1 April; it does not include VRS costs or the Rs. 20 billion “Ditva” cyclone loss; nor any coal‑related loss. We act on the side of the people. When rain is low, we inevitably run thermal at night; that is not unusual.
¶ 03 As for batteries, if everything were fine we would not need them. From 2016–17 many solar plants came, but did you get even 1 kWh discharged via batteries? No. You were in power for years. In one and a half years we have awarded 160 MW of BESS and will bring another 300 MW this year. We are doing in 18 months what was not done in 15–16 years. We will not succumb to mafias. Please do not claim a 20% hike is coming; PUCSL will decide the percentage—let us wait.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Tuesday, 17 February 2026 ·No. 23279 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Kumara Jayakody. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 17 February 2026. No. 23279. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/5852