By Andrew Irumba
State House, Entebbe: President of the Republic of Uganda, H.E Tibuhaburwa Yoweri Museveni or Yoweri Kaguta Museveni (depending on which side of the bed you woke up from), on Saturday declined to renew South Africa based power supplier, Umeme Co.Ltd, TheSpy Uganda exclusively reports.
READ ALSO: Panic: Umeme Lugogo Branch Closed As Three Staff Test Covid-19 Positive
Like in many of his previous speeches, president Museveni has persistently and deliberately continued to condemn the hikes in power tariffs despite the fact that we’re the manufacturers and suppliers of power to the rest of the EAC community countries.
READ ALSO: Umeme, Police Clash Over Electrocuted Staff In Mukono
Museveni, again, re-echoed the same sentiments towards UMEME, the South African based power distributors in Uganda during his Independence day speech on October 9, where he hinted on high tariffs for domestic consumers and has therefore spent quite a number of years tackling his head on how to avert this, given the fact that the negotiators of the first concession signed a 20 yr contract with Umeme, which the president was reluctant to interfere with. But as they say, everything finally come to an end.
READ ALSO: Speaker Kadaga Summons Energy Min.Kitutu Over Defective Umeme Meters
Now, TheSpy Uganda has it on good ground that the son of late Amos Kaguta and late Esteri Kokundeka (RIP), president Tibuhaburwa Yoweri Museveni, could finally be parting ways with Umeme Ltd after their 20-year concession expires in march 2025 if our well-placed spy in State House, where the Saturday meeting took place between UMEME top officials and the president is to go by. Highly placed sources in the State House on condition of anonymity told this reporter that; “Muzei isn’t happy with these guys, he wants their contract to end and find part ways”.
To some Ugandans, including a section of legislators, even to have privatized the national power sector to a foreign company, Umeme was a very big oversight on the side of Ugandan Gov’t, because ultimately, they argue, according to them, ‘these foreign companies come to make money and take to their countries to develop their own at the expense of our banana republic’.
READ ALSO: Broke UMEME Suspends Rural Connectivity Project Over Lack Of Funds
Our Spy eavesdropped the president on Saturday during the meeting that took place at State House Entebbe, assertively demanding for justification from the already timid Umeme top officials as to why they think their contract should be renewed when the current one expires. Umeme team was led by their chairman, city business mogul Patrick Bitature and Umeme Managing Director Selestino Babungi along with other top officials of the company.
On the other hand, they found the president well backed up and equipped with his energy experts including the energy minister. He also had in his hands a full dozier file of all their mischiefs including hiking operational and production costs which are finally passed unto the final consumer, our inside source confided in our reporter. “They found the man very ready for them, with all his team and necessary thoroughly documented facts about their activities, because their main agenda was an extension of their concession,” said the source.
READ ALSO: Shock As Umeme Employee Is Electrocuted To Death On Electric Pole
When contacted for a comment, UMEME’s deputy head media and Public relations, Steven Ilungole, distanced self from commenting on the matter and instead referred us to his boss Peter Kaujju. “Talk to our head of communications,” Ilungole said via a WhatsApp chat with our reporter last night.
Not giving up, when we reached out for a comment, Mr.Kaujju couldn’t deny nor confirm the developments though his comment further cast a dark cloud on the company’s hopes for a renewal of the contract. ……”Hi Andrew. There are fruitful discussions going on at a high level about the energy sector and the concession is among. We await the outcome of these engagements. For now, we continue with our work to ensure the distribution of safe and reliable power to Uganda. The current concession runs until 2025 and we are giving our best. When there’s any development especially on the new concession, we will be happy to share details. Cheers…..,” Kaujju tweeted back.
READ ALSO: Gulu Residents Threaten To Storm UMEME Offices Over Power Outages
This is Umeme’s second attempt beseeching the president for an extension of the contract, the first being in March 2018. Instead of granting renewal, the president instructed the energy minister Irene Muloni then, to instead look for a cheaper ‘alternative’.
Museveni accused Umeme then of colluding with officials from the Ministry of energy to inflate its operation costs, which finally trickles down to the end-user with hiked prices.
It should be remembered that Umeme took over power distribution from the Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (UEDCL) on March 1st 2005 through a concession that spans up to march 2025.
Although this deal was highly criticized and condemned by whistleblowers, and investigated by Parliament which recommended for its termination, they never succeeded as this would attract hefty legal penalties in compensation, a city lawyer warned.
Mr.Tibuhaburwa, in a letter dated March 13th, tasked Minister Muloni then to explain to him how Umeme’s technical losses still remained as high as 17% yet they claimed (Umeme) to have injected in up to USD500Million in distribution infrastructure to avert the same losses.
In the run-up to the signing of the concession in 2005, the Auditor General had calculated that Umeme’s losses, both technical (dilapidated infrastructure) and commercial (power theft etc) would stand at 28%. But the president hiked it up to 38%, following a meeting between Umeme investors and a delegation from the energy ministry in the US. The president did this to ensure they do a good job without excuses, according to our insider.
However, in 2009, when Gov’t instituted an Interim review on the Electricity Tariffs Committee, it among others, called for the re-nationalization of the energy sector by re-instating UEDCL to supply the energy. The committee that was chaired by president’s own young brother Gen.Salim Saleh termed Umeme deal as ‘not well thought after’.
Following committee findings, Umeme’s estimated losses somehow mysteriously somersaulted from 38% to 28%! Of the 28%, 15% were said to be technical and 13% commercial (theft).
Currently, thanks to various measures put in place by Umeme itself such as the pre-paid metering systems, media campaigns among others, Umeme said it reduced its commercial losses (theft) from 13% to 1%.
However, the president contends that Umeme still loses up to 17.3% energy due to technical issues up from 15% yet they claim to have injected in a whopping half a billion US dollar investment in distribution infrastructure networks to avert the same. He wonders why then they are not able to reduce technical losses.
“If they invested so much money, then why do the technical losses not decline?” wondered the president in his letter to then Minister Muloni.
The president said it was not correct for the final consumer to be penalized for the mysterious investment and mysterious technical losses that should have been eliminated long ago.
“In the meantime, there should be no question of renewing Umeme’s concession, let us look for a cheaper way of modernizing and expanding the transmission and distribution lines,” Museveni’s letter to Muloni said.
At that material time when the president was fuming, Umeme, in a panicky mood, told media that they were planning to inject in another USD1.5billion in distribution infrastructure network to address technical losses among others.
Well, since 2009, it’s now 11 years down the road, whether that dream came true is a matter you can also interrogate at your community village level wherever you’re reading this from. But the truth is, Mr. Tibuhaburwa is not amused…..
