Despite CEB’s move to increase the tariff rate of the consumers- claiming they are incurring losses- questions are raised as to why the same institution offered a tender for the solar project, which has a capacity of 100MW, to one of their ‘preferred’ bidders.

This deal has made the government incur a staggering loss of Rs. 8.7 billion.

This ‘preferred’ bidder is none other than a partner of a consortium where most of the top CEB Engineers are offered jobs for higher remuneration once they reach retirement.

The consortium consists of Lakdanavi Limited, Blue Circle Pvt Ltd and WindForce PLC. Lakdanavi is a subsidiary of Lanka Transformers Limited (LTL) where the CEB holds 63% of its shares.

It is a known secret that the top most senior CEB Engineers are offered jobs at Lakdanavi upon their retirement. These engineers are alleged to have a ‘duty’ to award tenders to partners of the consortium disregarding the tender conditions.