Power outages have nearly doubled and the time taken to restore supply has almost doubled to 20 hours since the Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL) took over from Umeme, its acting managing director has told Parliament, laying bare a sharp decline in service more than a year into the transition.
Jocelyn Rwakakooko, who has run UEDCL in an acting capacity since May, made the admission before the Public Accounts Committee (Central) on Monday, as MPs demanded to know why electricity had worsened after government absorbed almost the entire Umeme operation. “When we talk about how many times power goes off, we have also noticed that during the change it almost doubled,” Rwakakooko said, adding that average restoration time had climbed from about 12 hours to nearly 20.
She attributed the deterioration to years of underinvestment that had left substations and transformers overloaded, saying UEDCL had replaced or upgraded more than 800 transformers this year and was carrying out emergency replacement of another 300, alongside intensified clearing of vegetation along power lines.
Committee chairperson Patrick Oshabe Nsamba was unconvinced, telling officials that Ugandans had been promised better service after Umeme’s exit but were instead enduring longer and more frequent blackouts. He questioned why performance had collapsed when government had inherited the former operator’s entire network. “The infrastructure Umeme had was transferred to you. Nearly all the human resources were taken over. The toolboxes, the vehicles, everything was transferred. So where is the problem? Ugandans are concerned because their power is not coming,” Nsamba said.
The committee was meeting the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, UEDCL and the electricity generation sector to scrutinise the Auditor General’s reports and the performance of state agencies.
Nsamba also faulted the agency over more than 400,000 Ugandans who paid Umeme for connections that were never completed, demanding they be connected without further delay or refunded. Rwakakooko linked that backlog to limited funding for maintaining inherited substations and to delays in procuring meters.
Wakiso District Woman MP Ethel Naluyima said it was unacceptable that blackouts had spread across the country after Umeme’s departure. “We don’t understand what is going on. Is UEDCL facing inadequate human resource, limited equipment? What is the challenge?” Naluyima asked. Mubende District Woman MP Hope Grania Nakazibwe and other members pressed the agency to explain the slow rollout despite committed financing.
Energy ministry permanent secretary Irene Bateebe said government had provided UEDCL with about US$129m, roughly Shs477b, across the 2025 and 2026 financial years, but that much of it was tied up in procuring transformers, substations and meters. She said the ministry was working with the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority to shorten procurement cycles for critical equipment, and that a competitive process to recruit a substantive managing director would be concluded within two months.
Bateebe traced part of the strain to Cabinet’s 2022 decision not to renew Umeme’s 20-year concession, which she said pushed the company to scale back investment in its final years as government prepared for the buyout. She rejected claims that Umeme left with critical infrastructure, insisting the entire distribution network, its software and other operational assets were handed to UEDCL, with about 96% of the workforce retained.
Earlier this year, government allocated Shs14.2b to the household connection programme run through UEDCL, while the Rural Electrification Agency had procured more than 90,098 connection materials under African Development Bank and Islamic Development Bank financing, with at least 110,687 households targeted in the first phase.
