CEB to pay 1mn USD for 2009 bungle

30 October 2011 09:31 pm

An international tribunal has ordered the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) to pay US$1 million (around Rs.100 million) as damages to a Malaysian company over the misplacement of samples of aluminum cables supplied by them in 2009, officials said yesterday.

During the time, the CEB was under the purview of Minister John Seneviratne.

Present CEB Chairman Prof. Wimaladharma Abeywickrama told the Daily Mirror that the CEB had challenged the international tribunal ruling in a court of law here, and the case was still pending.

Prof. Abeywickrama said this Malaysian company had supplied the samples of aluminum cables after tenders were called by the CEB at that time.

“They had been misplaced in the process of transferring from one location to another. After that, the company had taken up the issue with an international tribunal which asked the CEB to make this payment as compensation,” he said.

Besides, the Parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) has also probed this case, and the matter is to be highlighted in its report scheduled to be presented in Parliament before the start of the budget sessions next month.

The COPE has already probed 249 state institutions. COPE Chairman and Senior Minister D.E.W. Gunasekara said it was the largest ever report furnished by the COPE in its history.

“Within a span of one year, we were able to probe all these institutions. We are planning to submit the report before the budget debate. We have to complete work on a few more institutions,” he said.  (Kelum Bandara)