The Sri Lanka government and other decision making bodies have turned down and discouraged many power generation projects funded by the private sector and foreign investors for many years and this has led to the current power crisis, said former BOI Chief Upul Jayasuriya.
He made these observations while making the keynote speech at the Daya Wettasinghe Oration ceremony last week.
“Sri Lanka has sunshine around the year but the solar energy that Sri Lanka generates is around 1% of our requirement. A European country that has 4 months of sunshine has 50% of their power generated from renewable energy. Why is it that we haven’t had any investments in renewable energy in the recent past?” he asked.
Commenting on LNG he said that if the country needs power generated by LNG there are many companies in the world willing to invest in LNG in Sri Lanka. “Why should the State own institutions sign contracts to buy LNG for 25 years not knowing how the technology would change within the next 5 years?”
He disclosed that there were five companies that made proposals for investments in LNG power generation in Sri Lanka. This was during 2017. They were; 1. Lanka Aloka AB Ltd, (proposed investments US$ 550 mn. Power 488 MW) 2. Sithe Global Power Ventures (US$ 1 Bn. Power 500 MW) 3. Energy World International Ltd (US$ 750 mn. Power 500 MW) 4. Shapoorji & Pallonji Group (US$ 400 mn. Power 140 MW) 5. China Machinery Engineering Corp. (US$ 728.8 mn. Power 400 MW).
“But sadly all these investments proposed to sell power at a price between 7-11 US cents with no charge for idle power, but none of these investments did realise but instead have fallen by the wayside.”
“Instead the government, CEB, Lanka Transformer Ltd. (a subsidiary of the CEB with a joint venture of ABB Ltd.) and LECO engaged themselves in setting power plants in Sri Lanka. Why should the government make investments in power generation and make continued losses? It has always been a case of politically appointed management personnel having them embroiled in nontransparent procurement processes!” he asked.
He also said that though Garment exports in 2021 was only 4.4 billion (down from US$ 5.6 billion in 2020) the contribution from the Garment trade making towards the GDP has to be closely looked at.
“As you know 70% of the garment inputs are imported and the contribution is only 25%-30%. Whereas in the field of software it is a 100% contribution to the GDP.”
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