Sri Lanka, Aug. 12 -- The legacy of state power monopoly has funneled millions of dollars in equity returns to private power producer Ace Power Embilipitiya (Pvt) Ltd over nearly a decade, exposing severe flaws in Sri Lanka's long-term generation planning and an expensive reliance on emergency procurements.

Details revealed in Parliamentary Publication Series No. 396, containing the energy minister's observations on the Committee on Public Enterprises investigations, show that the former Ceylon Electricity Board paid approximately 10.39 million dollars in return on equity charges alone to the plant operator between 2018 and 2024. These payments were made despite the original ten-year build-own-operate power purchase agreement for the 1...