UMEME's van in Luweero
TLT | Luweero Town Council | AS the clock ticks ever closer towards March 31st, 2025, UMEME’s twenty-year concession, to manage Uganda’s power distribution network, draws to an end. The government’s new distributor of choice is the Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL).
It’s quiet a mouth-full of a name. UMEME used to roll-off tongues quite easily, but come April 1st, 2025, Ugandans will have to learn who to blame for the electricity blackouts yet to come. For its part, the outgoing electricity distributor is racing to conclude any pending projects that it may still have time to complete.
In a March 19th, 2025, statement, the Energy and mineral development ministry filled in the blanks, if you will, with regard to the UEDCL’s preparedness to take-over, come April 1st, 2025.
Here’s how things stand.
- The government is fast tracking a $50 million loan through the country’s finance ministry. The funds from this loan, that will be sourced from country-based financiers, will provide the country’s new power distributor (UEDCL) with the money to it needs to run the business of a power distributor. The energy ministry expects these funds to be available to UEDCL by next weeks end.
- UMEME is owed about $190 million for money it has invested in the distribution network but has not been able to recover because of non-renewal of its concession. The necessary approvals are being sought from the East African country’s parliament in order to borrow the funds to buy-out UMEME.
- A recruitment exercise to staff UEDCL was done and is complete. The government had its eye on eliminating duplicated roles. Judging by the wording of the statement, the energy ministry is pleased with the outcome of the recruitment exercise. The downside to this has been that some employees of UMEME have not been absorbed into UEDCL. But that’s okay.
- As is to be expected, many promises have been made about the improved quality of service that Ugandans can expect from UEDCL. Only in the fullness of time will we know how true these promises turnout be, especially the unit cost of UEDCL’s electricity.
