The chairman of the public utility commission, who accused the minister of obduracy and not being prudent to provide uninterrupted power for the sake of students sitting the GCE (A/L) exam, is to be removed.
Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera says that all necessary steps have been taken to remove the chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, Mr Janaka Ratnayake and that a charge sheet has been drafted against him.
The minister said that government parliamentarians have agreed to remove him and that, according to the existing provisions of the parliamentary procedure, necessary steps are being taken to remove him.
The Minister, while rejecting the charge made by the Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission recently that the Minister’s arbitrary action and obduracy were more damaging than the incompetence of the Electricity Board behind the failure to provide uninterrupted power supply to the A-level students, said that it was this Chairman who pushed the Electricity Board into that situation.
The minister who further commented
“The chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, Janaka Ratnayake, the head of the Trillium Group, has been doing this for the past few years based on his personal opinion. He responded to the requests made by the Electricity Board and the Cabinet of Ministers regarding the tariff revision recently, not as the commission but as an individual in his personal capacity. He has acted in the past without informing other members of the commission. They have already mentioned this. Accordingly, the manner in which he has acted is illegal under the Public Utilities Act. We are taking action in this regard.
The minister added that Ratnayake was eyeing a slot on the national list to enter parliament from another political party.
