Led by their Chairperson Dan Kimosho (Kazo County), MPs sitting on the NRM-dominated Natural Resources Committee have faulted the electricity sub sector regulator (ERA) for not doing enough to support managers at UEDCL and thereby enabling them excel in doing their basic mandate-namely ensuring that Ugandans’ electricity-related needs are adequately supplied.
During a recent sitting at Parliament in Kampala, ERA was represented by their Director Economic Regulation Dr. Geoffrey Okoboi who struggled to defend his employer as loadshedding-stricken MPs threw one verbal artillery after another.
The people’s representatives dedicated the session to discussing the growing loadshedding problem across the country where citizens are angry that the UMEME exit (which took effect on the last day of March 2025) had made the loadshedding problem much worse instead of things getting better as had been widely expected. All electricity-related companies (UEGCL, UETCL & UEDCL) were represented and State Minister for Energy Hon Olupot Okasai overall led the entire delegation.
Okoboi was here to explain why things had turned out more complicated for UEDCL, in the post-UMEME era, than had been anticipated. He addressed concerns related to an overloaded and ageing electricity distribution network infrastructure, technical losses being very high because of the number of transformers & sub stations being inadequate. He also addressed the problem of vandalism of electricity network and rampant illegal connections.
MPs demanded to know why ERA did nothing as the bosses of UEDCL (whose takeover processes from UMEME started as early as 2024) slept on the job instead of commencing investing into the network on good time ahead of their formal taking over of the same from UMEME on 1st April 2025.
Money of up to $126m from the GoU and another $50m a loan from ABSA bank, had been availed to UEDCL to do exactly that work on good time but the actual spending of the same and investment into the network never commenced. Okoboi was asked why and he admitted the company’s executives’ hands were tied because of the regulatory restrictions imposed by ERA. He said any attempts by UEDCL to begin investing into the network before UMEME exit on the last day of March 2025 would have amounted to breaching regulations in place. These are all enforced by ERA under the Electricity Act. Okoboi said the same would breach fundamental provisions of UMEME’s concession agreement.
The MPs were angry at this assertion prompting Kimosho to declare Okoboi and other regulatory bosses at ERA saboteurs who must be jailed for the loadshedding problem the country is facing right now. Kimosho demanded to know why ERA bosses were shortsighted to such an extent. Okoboi denied all this making it clear that even the concession agreement for UMEME prohibited UEDCL making such investments into the network when UMEME was still in charge.
Kimosho, joined by other MPs like Anna Maria Nankabirwa of Kyankwanzi, Allan Atugonza of Buliisa and Sarah Wekomba of Bulambuli etc, demanded to know why ERA didn’t advise their bosses at the Ministry of Energy about this so that some political interventions could be occasioned. Okoboi said they did but could readily not produce any written proof to show that ERA ever did.
Eng Abdon Atwine (the Ag PS who represented his boss Eng Irene Batebe who is on leave) and Minister Okasai attempted to come in to bail out Okoboi on this issue but Kimosho stopped them saying people leading the sector agencies must carry their cross as opposed to being shielded.
Kimosho made it clear that if ERA bosses hadn’t slept on the job, and had done their work patriotically well, there wouldn’t have been such problems. All they had to do was to ask the Minister to bring the matter before Cabinet and a waiver would have been granted authorizing UEDCL to commence investing into the network in the last 6-10 months leading to UMEME exit.
Some of the MPs suspected and controversially asserted that some officials at ERA deliberately avoided doing this because they wanted chaos so that the President and the entire Ugandan populace regret why UMEME was forced out.
Okoboi said UEDCL, which already had the money, was allowed to begin investing in the distribution network effective 1st April 2025, the very day they took charge of the same but MPs (many of whose voters these days endure months of loadshedding and live in total darkness) vigorously pushed back insisting this was already too late.
They rejected, as deceptive, Okoboi’s assertion that there was no much harm because the regulator had ensured that UMEME created and left behind a stock of the required equipment that could facilitate the running and maintenance of the network for up to 6 months. Kimosho shut him up saying he should stop taking MPs for fools by putting it to him that in actual sense, there was no such stock.
“If that was true, there wouldn’t be all these loadshedding problems afflicting people across the country,” Kimosho said prompting his Vice Anna Maria Nankabirwa of Kyankwanzi to call upon both Atwine and Okoboi to be truthful so that the Committee is able to appreciate the extent of the problem as MPs prepare to support the Energy Ministry’s future requests for supplementary funding to mitigate the problem of the ailing distribution network.
A fire-breathing Kimosho, who said in his own Kazo area households had become used to being without electricity supply for as long as two months, asked Okoboi to eat a humble pie, own up to the regulator’s ineptness and listen to him as he read out and quoted letters showing the ERA leadership had curiously tied UEDCL bosses’ hands by stopping them from investing in the network revamp for 9 months yet the money ($126m from GoU & $50m from ABSA loan) was already available.
“Do you deny that it was ERA as the regulator which ordered UEDCL to fix the money in commercial banks in order to earn income on it via interest as opposed to immediately beginning to invest in the network? Do you want to tell us that was being patriotic and by the way what informed that decision?” Kimosho fumed as other MPs like Joseph Sewungu of Kalungu West ganged up to heap more misery on the hapless Dr. Geoffrey Okoboi who by this time was sweating profusely and uneasily turning in his seat.
In the end, Okoboi started changing his earlier utterances clearly contradicting his earlier submission including when he revealed that whereas UMEME annually used to invest between $50m and $70m into the network, during the last 2-3 years preceding their eventual exit, the annual network investment had dropped to no more than $20m. Nankabirwa jumped on this to illustrate to Okasai and Eng Abdon Atwine (the Ag PS) the extent to which truthfulness would make everyone’s life easy and comfortable during those Committee sessions.
The electricity sub sector leaders were made to realize that electricity distribution and loadshedding was a big problem for businesses and home owners-and therefore politically very sensitive since the prevailing loadshedding is totally contrary to what the President promised voters in his election manifesto. Kimosho promised to leverage the inherent powers the Committee has, placing it at the level of the High Court, to order the locking up of future floppy witnesses who will attempt to take MPs for fools the way Dr. Geoffrey Okoboi was accused of trying to do. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com.
