Electricity transmission chief Erias Kiyemba (R) displays energy sales documents to MPs on Wednesday. PHOTO BY G. SSERUYANGE
Parliament has asked the Electricity Regulatory Authority to shelve proposals to increase power tariffs. The officials were on Wednesday appearing before a House ad hoc committee inquiring into suspicions of corruption in the power sector.
Committee members Ann Nankabirwa (Kyankwanzi, Woman) and Jack Wamai Wamanga (Mbale Municipality) argued that power consumers are already paying high tariffs and demanded that ERA explain why, given the expected launch of the 50MW Bujagali Dam next month, there is no relief for consumers.
“Why should power tariffs go up when we have rain? This is unacceptable and we cannot exploit our people. In any case, Bujagali is coming on board in November,” Mr Wamai said. “We export electricity to neighbouring countries yet our people are suffering with load-shedding.”
In his response, the acting ERA Executive Director, Mr Benon Mutambi, said the 50MW expected from Bujagali will ease pressure on the subsidy budget currently standing at Shs600 billion annually. He said government is currently subsididing power tariffs by up to 60 per cent of unit cost.
“The [electricity] subsidy budget constitutes about 26 per cent of the budget going to education, health and agriculture. This is why we need to reduce the subsidies and Bujagali will help us to de-commission some of the thermal generators which are costly,” Mr Mutambi said.
He proposed that the consumer shares the cost burden to improve efficiency in the power sector.
“If this is not done,” he said, “then the cost of load-shedding will be significant. By proposing the increase we are looking at the reliability of the supply. The rains have not significantly impacted on the hydrology patterns on River Nile. The hydrology of a river cannot improve in a year.”
The committee heard that when Bujagali comes on board, government will save about Shs30b currently spent on subsidising consumers.
Warning ERA officials against increasing power tariffs without parliamentary approval, the MPs said they were not satisfied with the regulator’s explanation that the rains have not improved hydrology of the Nile.
ymugerwa@ug.nationmedia.com
Courtesy of The Monitor
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