Andrew Bagala
2 December 2011
Umeme, the major power distributing company, has evolved a psychological ploy intended to reduce public pressure by limiting load-shedding in areas that are likely to strike but switching off those regarded as passive.
Umeme officials yesterday switched on power in Katwe and Kibuye towns after a five-hour protest against the 24-hour load-shedding that left the main road to Entebbe Airport and State House cut off for more than two hours.
The same method is carried out in other areas like Butambala District where they are said to have less transformers compared to the number of towns they supply power to.
Traders on Nasser and Nkrumah roads who went on strike a fortnight ago against a 24-hour load-shedding are now getting power for at least 12-hours during day as they had demanded.
The method of get-power-after-rioting may prove to be risky for the power distribution company and the government given the fact that the country still has a power deficit of 90MW.
Katwe and Nasser road traders threatened to resume the protests if the power is switched off again. Umeme is supplied only 210MW from the power generating company though the national need is 450MW which means that the country has a deficit of 240MW.
Interestingly, less than 10 per cent Ugandans have access to power. Umeme spokesperson Charlotte Kemigyisha, who prefers to give responses by mail, did not send us her company’s response by press time on this specific issue but described the power outages as “most unfortunate and unfortunately inevitable”.
“The power outages we are experiencing are most unfortunate and unfortunately inevitable given the low generation of power at the moment,” Ms Kemigyisha said yesterday.
According to Umeme, before July they were receiving 350MW against a demand of 450MW but after the shutdown of Aggreko Kira thermal plant it went down to 300MW.
Ms Kemigyisha said the crisis worsened when Eskom, Electromaxx, Aggreko-Mutundwe and Jacobsen curtailed their supply bringing down the supply to 210MW.
“Up till November we were having a deficit of 70MW during the day, we now have a deficit of 127MW during the day,” she said.
Government had promised that load-shedding would reduce by end of last month which has not yet materialised.
AllAfrica – All the Time