The Sri Lanka Electricity (Amendment) Bill, was passed in Parliament today.
The Bill was passed without committee stage amendments and with a majority of 70 votes.
A total of 116 MPs had voted in favour of the Bill while 46 had voted against it.
Earlier, the second reading of the Sri Lanka Electricity (Amendment) Bill was passed with a majority of 84 votes.
120 MPs had voted in favour, while 36 had voted against and 13 had abstained.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has welcomed the adoption of the Sri Lanka Electricity (amendment) Bill.
“This allows rapid deployment of cost-effective renewable energy to the grid. Thank you @kanchana_wij for his seeing this through,” he Tweeted.
Commenting on the vote, opposition MP Dr. Harsha de Silva said he had fought hard to keep transparency in procuring large renewable energy projects by proposing a compromise amendment to do away with tenders for less than 10MW.
“My amendment got 54 votes. #SriLanka joins odd group of nations blocking competition. This goes against #goodgovernance,” he Tweeted.
The Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP also said due to non-transparent procurement and corruption Sri Lanka pays so much more than necessary for electricity.
“One bright spot was the requirement for competition in renewable projects but had delays. Instead of fixing the problem, they did away with the competition. A horrible decision,” he added.
Meanwhile, opposition leader MP Sajith Premadasa said the Samagi Jana Balawegaya was against moves to remove competition in the bidding process for renewable projects.
Stating that the amendments have been made to increase personal wealth, MP Sajith Premadasa revealed that the Energy Mafia was behind this move. (NewsWire)
