By Mulengera Reporters
The truth is more than 60% of the staff manning the GoU-owned electricity distribution company UEDCL are former UMEME employees who were transitioned into the new arrangement effective April last year after UMEME’s 20-year concession agreement had come to an end. Eng Joselynne Rwabwogo Rwakakoko, the Ag MD for the company, is among them. Several of her fellow exco members, she leads with in top management, equally came from UMEME.
Yet some Members of Parliament, who are angry to see the company (into which GoU’s hard-earned $126m and another $50m GoU-guaranteed loan from ABSA bank has been sunk since the UMEME exit) struggle endlessly while showing no signs of things getting better in the near future, want all of them fired.
The people’s representatives perceive some of the former UMEME employees as saboteurs out to ensure that the UEDCL project fails, to spark nostalgic feelings among millions of Uganda, so that they begin demanding restoration of the old order that prevailed before April 2025.
Two days, namely Wednesday and Thursday, last week were dedicated by the leadership of Parliament’s Natural Resources Committee to interacting with the leadership of the country’s electricity sub sector. The leaders of electricity generation, transmission and distribution companies, all public and owned by the GoU, were at hand to interact with the Committee members led by their Chairman Dan Kimosho of Kazo County. From the Ministry of Energy came the Ag PS Eng Abdon Atwine and the state minister Okasai Olupot.
MPS IRKED:
During the interaction, the MPs were angry to hear from Economic Regulation Director Dr. Geoffrey Okoboi who represented ERA (the sector regulator) that even when all this money (GoU’s $126m and another $50m loan from ABSA bank) had been made available, the curiously inept top managers at UEDCL had only been able to utilize only $1.5m.
The company top managers, led by Ag MD Joselynne Rwabwogo Rwakakoko, blamed part of the slow absorption rates of the availed funds on the very constraining BuBu reservation clauses requirements, which compel them to purchase stuff they require for distribution network revamp from local companies which have limited capacity to promptly supply good enough quality requirements like transformers etc.
The electricity distribution network, on which UEDCL relies to move electricity from where its generated/stored to where it’s required for consumption, is characterized by ageing equipment, overloaded transformers and poorly serviced/maintained sub stations across the country.
At the time of UMEME exit in April 2025, the network was in very poor state because, according to ERA’s Dr. Okoboi, in the final years, UMEME’s annual investment into the network (which used to range between $50m-$70m) had dropped to mere $20m.
As a result of the overloaded and ageing network-related constraints, the prevalence of loadshedding has increased since UMEME exit, something over which MPs were very bitter to the Energy Sector delegation which was led by State Minister Okasai Olupot, in absence of senior Minister Monica Musenero.
The fire-spitting MPs were led by Allan Atugonza (Buliisa County), Joseph Sewungu (Kalungu West), Moses Mayanja (Busiro North in Wakiso), Sarah Wekomba (Bulambuli Woman MP) and Naomi Kabasharira (Rushenyi County in Ntungamo). Though less radical, Committee Vice Chairperson Anna Maria Nankabirwa (Kyankwanzi) was also equally outspoken and hard on the electricity sector leaders. She accused the ERA top leadership of not being adequately truthful while interacting with MPs. Dan Kimosho, the chairperson, was uncompromising in his questioning as always.
During the Thursday session, Kimosho was very hard on Dr. Okoboi claiming that the regulator was deliberately messing up the electricity sub sector for the top executives to eat in the resulting chaos. Kimosho pinned Okoboi (who he almost ordered the CIDs to lock up for perjuring) and demanded to know why ERA for months used its regulatory powers and prevented UEDCL from investing in the network revamp as the country counted down to the UMEME departure.
Okoboi couldn’t satisfactorily explain why the regulator pushed the UEDCL top management to keep the money (the GoU’s $126m & ABSA’s $50m) on the fixed bank accounts to accumulate interest instead of immediately investing in network revamp. He also attracted rebuke when he told MPs that the regulatory rules didn’t permit UEDCL to invest anything into the network for as long as UMEME was still in charge.
Kimosho demanded to know why ERA didn’t bring this to the attention of then Minister Ruth Nankabirwa who would have been obliged to secure a waiver from Cabinet. Okoboi responded to this too but his explanation was dismissed as unsatisfactory. Each time Okasai tried to come in, the members of the NRM-dominated Committee shut him up with Kimosho repeatedly saying “Honourable Minister, let these people carry their cross.”
Dr. Okoboi was also accused of telling lies when he told MPs that there had been no need to panic because the network maintenance and operational equipment UMEME left in place as at April 2025, was enough to run Uganda’s entire electricity distribution operation for another 6 months. Kimosho accused the regulator of sleeping on the job while making it clear that the power outages Ugandan home and business owners are currently grappling with were foreseeable if ERA was being led by prudent managers who had the interests of the country at heart.
Some MPs went as far as claiming that some insiders at the regulator are nostalgic about UMEME days, something Dr. Okoboi vigorously rejected as untrue. Officials blamed some of the sub sector’s problems on the fact that demand for electricity has rapidly been growing without the investment into the network equally growing. That in the five years, between 2021 and 2026, the customer base grew from 1.6m to 2.78m, demonstrating clear demand growth.
While demanding to know whether former UMEME employees who were integrated into UEDCL weren’t sabotaging the company from within in order to prove a point and amplify nostalgia among the Ugandan populace, Busiro North MP Moses Mayanja demanded the purging of all ex-UMEME employees so as to ensure there is no kawukumi inside UEDCL. This call was supported by several MPs who demanded to know from ERA’s Okoboi what it would take for this purge to be effected.
MP Moses Mayanja demanded to know what the people of Wakiso did to the UEDCL top management for them to be condemned to so much loadshedding and darkness. He said that his area has 722 villages, many of which have no power access yet UEDCL bosses are idly sitting on billions of taxpayers’ money.
He said that in his Busiro North constituency, only Kakiri and Namayumba town council residents have access to UEDCL electricity, which also remains very unreliable because of rampant vandalism acts. These acts were blamed by some MPs on former UMEME employees including those who were dropped and those who were retained to work at UEDCL.
The ERA man Okoboi asserted that vandalism is a big problem which the regulator is aware of and explained the mitigation steps being undertaken. The MPs were unsatisfied and dismissed his explanation as not good enough.
MP Allan Atugonza of Buliisa County bitterly narrated the experiences of his voters living and working in Biso town council who he said are now used to going for as long as four days per week without electricity. He also cried out about the delayed completion of the Hoima-Biso electricity distribution line. Anna Maria Nankabirwa informed him that this wasn’t the work of UEDCL since for them are only concerned with maintenance of such lines and sub stations.
Asserting that people in his Kazo area are now used to going two weeks in a month without electricity, Committee Chairperson Dan Kimosho called on UEDCL bosses to have some conscience and begin being ashamed of themselves instead of gaslighting Ugandans, as if they are fools who don’t understand anything on their own.
The Committee Chairperson made it clear that people in his area gave up on UEDCL long time ago and are now on their own when it comes to matters of electricity distribution and access. “The truth is I’m very angry at all of you people, especially the regulator ERA, because you people have given us a lot of darkness,” Kimosho exploded at some point as Dr. Okoboi struggled to defend the regulator.
The MPs told the sector representatives from both ERA and UEDCL to be careful with what they say in the Committee because Ugandans know the darkness they are living under, meaning that no amount of sweet-talking can diminish their loadshedding-related grievances. Kimosho accused the delegation members of speaking very good English but which was devoid of truth and substance. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
