Four years after commissioning Bujagali hydro
power plant, the largest power station in the country, government is racing
against time to develop Karuma and Isimba hydro power plants in a move to meet
the country’s growing power demand, estimated at 50 mw per year and to end
years of chronic power shortages.
However, the Daily monitor newspaper recently reported
that the Energy minister Irene Muloni had confirmed shoddy works in the
construction of the Karuma, and Isimba dams both slated to be commissioned in
December 2018 and in August 2018 respectively. The matter came to light after
UEGCL – the state agency that is mandated with running completed power plants
raised the red flag, alerting the President that the quality of works at the
two dams had been compromised under suspected connivance between Energy
Infratech from India, the lead supervisor and the contractor. Chinese firm
Sinohydro is the contractor for the 600MW Karuma dam while China Water is
constructing the 183MW dam at Isimba.
Let’s not forget that these are the same companies that
government hand picked and awarded the contract to build these dams
instead of taking them through a
competitive bidding process with other companies. Already, concerns are
mounting about the costs of these projects. While Karuma was initially expected
to cost around $1.4 billion, this is now likely to shoot up to $2 billion,
according to experts.
It is now questionable whether these dams will be able to deliver
the expected benefits to Ugandans considering the above indicators. Construction
of dams in Uganda has had a history of inflated costs, lack of commitment and
unnecessary delays.Built on the promises of remaking people from peasants
to modern citizens, these dams could fail to deliver reliable and affordable
power even to the local communities near the projects, and rather become mere
set-pieces of nation building.
Clearly, lack of transparency in deal making,profiteering and
shady contracts are undermining the functionality of the energy sector and this
continues to be the reason for inaccessible and expensive power that robs many
Ugandans the dignity and opportunity that comes with access to modern energy.
This is coupled with the fact that government continues to prioritize dams
with less investment in other clean energy sources capable of transitioning the
country towards a low-carbon climate-resilient economy.In most cases, the political currency earned by building dams is
very high surpassing their actual usefulness. Other energy sources such as
solar, wind are much more difficult to convert into political mileage and also
undermine the traditional energy model considering that the sun and wind are
intangible.
In the East African region ,Uganda still lags in
third position in power generation efficiency at 61% with Kenya being the
leader at 78% followed by Tanzania at 65% . Uganda has the potential to
leapfrog over good old Hydro and become a regional leader in clean energy
development. With the fall in the price of solar panels and storage batteries,
there’s also an opportunity for many households in rural areas that mostly rely
on traditional biomass usage a contributor to dangerous carbon
emissions .
Uganda cannot develop to create jobs, improve
health services and compete with the rest of the world without sufficient and
affordable electricity. Rural dwellers should not sit back to wait for
electricity services from the government but venture into use of solar and wind
energy sources for lighting their homes and businesses .
As citizens we must hold
the energy sector leaders accountable because when these dams finally start
producing unreliable and expensive power like history has shown we are the
losers.
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