Hiring private companies has largely been blamed for the high cost of power and unstable supply, and for this, the public view is dominated by calls not to renew Umeme’s contract at the end of its 20 years in 2025. "Even if the contract is to be renewed, the government should leave the companies to operate in peace without threats of termination because this also scares investors away from the sector," says Ssebowa, former ERA Executive Director.
At least eight out of10 Ugandans want the electricity sector to undergo some kind of reform with a hope that this will improve service delivery, according to a mini-survey.
The poll survey featured 161 high net-worth individuals, or the kind of Ugandans who are likely to be high-end users of electricity, as part of the ongoing debate on the proposed rationalization of agencies in the energy sector.
The survey by local think-tank Kigo Thinkers, revealed that the call for reforms is based on the feeling that electricity supply if very unreliable due to constant power cuts, followed by the high cost of using it and access or connection.
The proposed reforms could see a number of government entities re-merged, while some private companies contracted by the government to do the work could lose their contracts.
The current regime was instituted in the early 2000s in reforms that brought to an end the existence of the Uganda Electricity Board, which used to handle all generation, transmission and distribution, overseen by the Ministry of Energy.
The Electricity Regulatory Authority, ERA was created to regulate the privatised sector.
Twenty years later, public pressure has seen government review the sector performance and this could end in the abolishing some agencies, with the Rural Electrification Agency which is already collapsed into the Rural Electrification Program as a department in the ministry.
The Uganda Electricity Generation Company Ltd and the Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Ltd which government formed to handle the sector, instead hired most of the functions to private companies.
Only the Uganda Electricity Transmission Co Ltd (UETCL) has in effect retained its full functions.
Hiring private companies has largely been blamed for the high cost of power and unstable supply, and for this, the public view is dominated by calls not to renew Umeme’s contract at the end of its 20 years in 2025.Dickens Kamugisha, the Chief Executive Officer of the Africa Institute for Energy Governance -AFIEGO, says he does not see any reason why the […]