By Mulengera Reporters
During the Wednesday interface with UEDCL and Energy Ministry officials, the Parliament’s Natural Resources Committee Chairman Dan Kimosho shared some of the findings registered during a recent visit to Karuma dam. At the installed generation capacity of 600megawats, Karuma is at the core of Uganda’s electricity generation infrastructure.
The dam cost the GoU over $2.2bn to construct to completion barely 10 years ago, yet Kimosho revealed that the Committee established that in the not-so-distant future, generation will become more constrained because of the raging water weed problem which keeps disrupting the water flow.
Kimosho said that they established during their recent visit that $40m (roughly Shs160bn) will be required to get rid of this rampaging water weed. As fellow MPs nodded in approval, Kimosho asserted that this was foreseeable but was curiously overlooked because of deliberate indolence of the officials concerned. He implied they underestimated this problem and hesitated to invest in the appropriate mitigation on good time because they intended to rip off government ad profit from the same some day.
Kimosho explained that they established that, contrary to what the concerned officials anticipated, the water weed has roots going to the very bottom of the river as opposed to being merely floating on the top of the water. He asserted that this challenge was foreseeable and could have been mitigated against from the very inception if the officials concerned had acted prudently and with sufficient levels of patriotism.
He made it clear that his committee would be reluctant to support the allocation of the required $40m when time comes because they see the same as rewarding the incompetent officials who deliberately slept on the job in order to make money and profit from the challenge some day.
Unfortunately, there was no time for the Energy Ministry officials to clarify and respond to the same because State Minister Olupot Okasai, who led the delegation, indicated that they had to leave early to travel to State House for a meeting with the President who was expecting them later in the day.
Kimosho demanded that on Thursday when the interaction will be resuming, the Energy Ministry officials along with UEDCL should be prepared to explain why they never adequately prepared for continuity in the life after UMEME had exited. He said the Committee wasn’t prepared to accept blaming today’s rampant power outages on the UMEME exit because there was more than enough time to prepare.
In any case, Dr. Canon Ruth Nankabirwa, who was the line minister at the time UEDCL took over the role, assured the country that more than enough contingent planning had been undertaken to ensure no disruptions resulted from UMEME’s exit.
Kimosho made his Karuma-related comments after Okasai had indicated to MPs that mere putting pressure on UEDCL (which is charged with distribution) won’t sustainably cure Uganda’s electricity-related problems because demand for the same keeps growing faster than generation.
Okasai called on MPs to support his Ministry’s efforts to secure additional funding to invest in diverse generation avenues as opposed to over relying on hydro electricity because the gestation period to construct a dam is a minimum of 10 years.
In his opening statement, Okasai also called on MPs to support efforts by his ministry to expedite the establishment of a power station in the Hoima Industrial Park to ensure that the Kabalega City is adequately electrified for the hosting of all 2027 AFCON-related events.
He made it clear there are many other interventions that the GoU will have to undertake to adequately solve Uganda’s electricity-related problems beyond just pressurizing and demanding results from UEDCL.(For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
