MUKONO. Vandalism of electricity transmission towers that left the districts of Mukono and Buikwe in total blackout early this week has cost the national power distributor , Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL) four million units, translating into billions of money.
“We sell about 16 million units monthly in the area, and being off for six days means we have lost about four million units. He clarified that power has been off for about four days after the vandalism on power lines in Nama sub-county, Mukono North Constituency, and they are planning to restore power after a six-day blackout, probably on Tuesday,” UEDCL Managing Director Paul Mwesigwa said over the weekend during a meeting between investors and officials from UEDCL and Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited (UETCL).
He also said 128,000 customers are affected, of which 200-300 are manufacturers.
“We are supposed to get 157 megavolts; unfortunately, we can only get 15 from the alternative supply, and that is SCOUL. So, we are in a shortage of over 90 percent of the energy that we need to supply to our customers in the region,” he said,adding
“We have rationalised for the little energy [15 megavolts] to give the domestic customers, such that we don’t get other security issues and riots when the population is demanding for power.”
UETCL Chief Executive Officer Richard Matsiko appealed for calm among the affected investors and communities, assuring them that restoration efforts are in progress.
“We have mobilized adequate resources, and supply is expected to be restored by early next week,” he said.
The investors expressed deep frustration over the power blackout, which has severely disrupted production across multiple factories.
Sam Mukisa, the Human Resource Manager at Landy Industries Limited, said the company is incurring substantial losses, particularly during the high-demand festive season.
“We can not run the machinery on generators, and our workers who earn daily wages are idle. The impact is growing by the hour,” he said.
Mr. Gavran Dwivedi of Tembo Steels Limited, one of the country’s largest industrial power consumers, warned that the outage is significantly affecting their steel operations.
“We request the government to restore the supply immediately and reinforce security on the transmission lines to prevent a recurrence,” he said.
Other factories, including Brave Industries Uganda Limited, reported secondary effects such as water shortages caused by the power cut. Pharmaceutical companies like Abacus noted that production of drug orders has stalled, leaving clients unattended.
Eng. Protaze Tibyakinura, Chief Engineer for Technical Services at UETCL, confirmed that three substations were affected, cutting off supply to multiple facilities/industries, including Tian Tang, Kampala Cement, Quality Plastics, Landy, Abacus parenteral drugs limited, the Katosi Water Project, Mpoma, Mbalala, and the Tembo substations. He also said in the process of vandalism, one of the suspects was electrocuted and his body was removed by the technical team
He said technical teams had been deployed to work around the clock to restore supply.
However, Samuel Apedel from National Water and Sewerage Corporation said lack of power has affected their capacity to produce water at the Katosi water treatment plant. On a normal day, we can produce about 90 million litres of water per day. Because of the vandalism, the electricity that has been replaced by UETCL is not able to produce enough water; we are instead producing about 50 million litres, meaning we have lost half of our production capacity. The affected areas without water are Eastern Kampala, Mukono district, Namugongo, Gayaza, Kamwokya, Kireka, Mbuya, Matuga and the surrounding area.