MPs Question Energy Ministry, UEDCL Over Worsening Power Outages

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has tasked the Energy and Mineral Development Ministry and the Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL) to explain the persistent power outages across the country.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has tasked the Energy and Mineral Development Ministry and the Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL) to explain the persistent power outages across the country despite the government taking over power distribution from Umeme.

This came up during a meeting on Monday between the committee members and officials from the Ministry of Energy, UEDCL and the electricity generation sector while scrutinising the Auditor General’s reports and the performance of state agencies.

The lawmakers said Ugandans were promised improved electricity services after the expiry of Umeme’s 20-year concession in March 2025, but they are instead experiencing more frequent and prolonged blackouts.

The PAC Chairperson Patrick Oshabe Nsamba challenged the ministry’s explanation that outages were being caused by a combination of vandalism, overloaded substations, ageing transformers and ongoing network upgrades.”When you inherited Umeme’s business, things have become worse.

Ugandans are experiencing a worse situation than in the days of Umeme,” Nsamba said, urging officials to explain the problem in simple terms instead of technical language. He noted that the government took over Umeme’s infrastructure, vehicles, systems and most of its workforce, making it difficult to understand why service delivery had declined.

“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 also questioned the Ministry of Energy over the continued delay in appointing a substantive Managing Director for UEDCL.Engineer Jocelyn Rakakoko, who has been serving in acting capacity since May 3, 2026, acknowledged the deterioration in service reliability, saying the utility had recorded a sharp increase in outages and slower response times.”We can see the change in performance. When we talk about how many times power goes off, we have also noticed that during the change it almost doubled.

We also monitor the time it takes our teams to respond. We noted an increase from about 12 hours to almost 20 hours,” Rakakoko told the committee.She attributed the outages to years of inadequate investment in the distribution network, saying electricity demand had grown much faster than investments in substations, transformers and distribution lines.

According to Rakakoko, overloaded substations and transformers have become increasingly common, resulting in more equipment failures and frequent blackouts.

She said UEDCL had replaced or upgraded more than 800 transformers this year and was undertaking emergency replacement of another 300 transformers, while also intensifying vegetation management to reduce outages caused by trees falling on power lines.The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy, Engineer Irene Bateebe, said outages had multiple causes, including vandalism of electricity infrastructure, overloaded equipment and procurement delays that had slowed network expansion. She said UEDCL was working with security agencies to curb vandalism and had been directed to improve emergency response times.

Bateebe also assured MPs that the recruitment of a substantive UEDCL Managing Director would be completed within two months through a competitive process. Pressed by MPs on why electricity performance had worsened despite government injecting substantial funding into UEDCL, Bateebe explained that investments in the network had slowed after Cabinet decided in 2022 not to renew Umeme’s concession. She said the decision resulted in reduced capital investment by Umeme during the final years of the concession as government prepared for the buyout.

According to Bateebe, government has since provided UEDCL with about 129 million US dollars (approximately Shs477 billion) over the 2025 and 2026 financial years to finance network improvements. She, however, said much of the funding is tied up in procurement of transformers, substations and other equipment, although the government secured special approval from the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) to allow faster procurement procedures.

Bateebe dismissed suggestions that Umeme left with critical infrastructure, insisting that the entire distribution network, associated software and other operational assets were handed over to UEDCL at the end of the concession. She added that about 96 percent of Umeme’s workforce was absorbed into UEDCL, meaning the transition preserved most of the technical expertise required to run the network.

Several MPs shared experiences of deteriorating customer service since the transition. Benjamin Cadet, the Bunyaruguru County MP, said large electricity consumers were now suffering prolonged outages lasting up to two days without receiving timely assistance from UEDCL offices or customer care lines, yet continued to face penalties for consuming less power than contracted.

The MP contrasted the situation with Umeme’s operations, where faults were often restored within hours, and local managers were held accountable for prolonged interruptions.Silas Aogon, the Kumi Municipality MP, questioned whether cultural integration challenges following the merger of former UEDCL and Umeme staff had affected operational efficiency.

Rakakoko acknowledged that integrating employees from the two organisations had required deliberate change management but said the company was working to build a unified workforce capable of improving service delivery. Government officially took over electricity distribution from Umeme on 1 April 2025, ending a 20-year private concession that began in 2005.

The transition placed UEDCL in charge of electricity distribution nationwide, with the government promising lower costs, faster investments and improved service reliability. Since the takeover, however, consumers have increasingly complained about frequent power outages, delayed fault restoration and poor customer service, prompting Parliament to intensify oversight of the state-owned utility.

The Public Accounts Committee’s scrutiny comes as the government continues investing hundreds of billions of shillings in expanding and rehabilitating the country’s electricity distribution network while seeking to restore public confidence in UEDCL’s management of the sector. URN