UNP threatens legal action against power price hike

The UNP has decided to take legal action against the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), if the latter goes ahead with much speculated electricity price hike.UNP Deputy General Secretary, Dr Jayalath Jayawardana, MP, said that his party believed that the government should not permit the increase in electricity prices at a moment when the masses were suffering under the heavy burden of high cost of living.

According to the information available, the CEB was planning to increase the electricity tariffs by as much as 125 to 150 percent, Dr. Jayawardena said, adding that the people undergoing hardships could in no way bear such an increase.

The MP said that the UNP had met the members of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and requested them not to permit the CEB to increase the electricity prices. The UNP’s trade union, Jathika Sevaka Sangamaya, headed by him and several other trade unions had prepared a special report proposing that the decision to increase electricity prices be revoked and that document had been handed over to the PUC, he said.

"Nowhere in history have we seen such an increase. This unprecedented arbitrary price hike amounts to a violations of consumers’ rights. The UNP has consulted its legal experts with a view to going to courts against it," the MP said.

Dr. Jayawardana also said that apart from legal action, his party had decided to take every possible action, both in and out of Parliament, to pressure the government to do away with plans to increase electricity prices.