The Prime Minister noting that Sunday's outage was the third incident of country wide power failure, said it is a serious situation and such incidents cannot be forgiven any longer.
Issuing a special statement, the PM said he headed a special discussion Monday with President Maithripala Sirisena, the Power and Renewable Energy Minister, Deputy Minister and other officials of the power authority and decided to take immediate steps to remedy the problems.
The Power and Renewable Energy Minister was instructed to present a complete report on the incidents in parliament on 23rd March, the PM said.
He further said that it is government's responsibility to take steps to ensure such failures will not happen in future and it is essential to probe the reasons for the present situation and take long-term measures.
The Prime Minister said today's discussion focused on the adverse results the people experience in the present day due to the generation of power without a well-thought out plan.
Although several rounds of discussions on generation and distribution of power have been held before, the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) did not have a proper plan to meet the power requirements of the present and the future, the Prime Minister pointed out. Therefore, the government is currently arranging for the CEB to obtain external advice from local and foreign experts in order to prepare a new plan, the PM said.
He said the investigations have already been commenced to find the reasons for the breakdown and measures to prevent such failures.
Recalling that the government came to power to fulfill the needs of the people, the Prime Minister said the government will take priority in finding short and long term solutions to provide an uninterrupted power service to the people. The government will work towards the necessary reconstruction, reorganization and restructuring of the service, the PM promised.
