Joining the debate on the Vote on Account, he said the government had appointed a committee comprising university lecturers and experts in the field to investigate the power  outage recently where the issue could not be rectified for several hours leaving the country without power. “I received the Committee report three days ago and it was submitted to  the Cabinet on Wednesday evening and while the committee disclosed their findings to the media last morning, I am tabling the report in Parliament,” he said.

He said this will go down as a first instance a committee report has been made public in the country’s history, as opposed to the many previous committees that we appointed to  investigate various issues, but no one knew what happened to these reports. However, he said the government’s policy is to be totally transparent and not hide anything from the  consumers who have the right to know what happened, he said inviting everyone to follow his example.

Alahapperuma noted that he is bound to honour the trust placed by the people on the President and the government, adding that the government had been elected to power in a  monumental election victory. “The Presidential election was held on November 16th and President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa won by 1,362,000 votes more than his contender Sajith  Premadasa. However, by August 05th, within nine months, the government under the President won by a majority of 3.8 million votes. Not just that, taking into account the  percentage of voters who used their vote in November which was 81%, but at the August General election only 75% had used their vote. Hence, while the voter turnout at the  August elections had dropped by 6% the number of votes for the government had increased from 1,362,000 to 3.8 million. This is a clear indication that not only our party  supporters had placed their trust on the president and voted for us. It shows that a large number of UNP and other party supporters too had voted for us. We must all remember  that this phenomenal victory was due to the trust placed by the people on President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Hence, we are all bound to honour that mandate and the first step is to  remember that this massive victory was not because of any of us but solely because of the trust people have in the President.”

Emphasizing on the current electricity crisis in the country, the Minister of Power also warned that the country could face a grave power crisis in the future if power supply is not  managed efficiently. “During the past five years not even 10 megawatts of power was added onto the national grid. I admit that the power failure was due to a human error, which is  possible. However, one must acknowledge that the engineers and senior staff of the CEB are without doubt the best in this region with a wealth of experience and knowledge.  Therefore, I detest the derogatory attacks being levelled against these officers, as the issue is that our country does not have a proper power generation plan. However, our  engineers have drawn up such a power generation plan but it has not been implemented due to the various political interferences. Therefore, before levelling allegations at our  engineers and technicians, we need to accept this reality. We have failed to stand up for the implementation of a national power generation plan,” he added.

The minister pointed out that there is much talk about getting investment into the country but when a unit of electricity costs only Rs. 6 in India, who would want to come to invest  in our country and pay Rs. 23 per unit? “This is the reality. Hence, if we are to attract foreign investment, it is absolutely imperative to bring down the cost of power. This is not an  impossible task. We need to implement a national power generation plan in consultation with the electrical engineers and the PUCSL. Our main goal is to reduce the 32%  dependency on diesel power generation to 5% by 2025. To achieve this goal we need to place our trust on renewable energy. In conclusion, the Power Minister urged the members  of parliament to support the power generation national plan when it is presented to parliament as a national issue, without looking at the matter with green or red tinted glasses.”