Failure to implement our power projects led to crisis: MR

The failure to implement the power plants and projects launched by the previous government has plunged the country into a power crisis, former president and Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa said in Hambantota yesterday.

“Norochcholai and Kerawalapitiya power plants have come to a standstill. If our government had not constructed any power plants the entire country would have been in darkness," he said.

Mr. Rajapaksa said he believed that the emergency power purchases made at higher prices to cover the shortfall only benefit the owners of the private power plants and parties involved in those purchases.

"There is a special group of people who are taking advantage of the power crisis. They are not concerned about the fact that the people are in dark as long as they fill their own pockets,” he said. (Aneesha Mannage)