By Guest Writer
Opinion: If Uganda wants to achieve the mission and objective of the Energy Policy for Uganda 2023, the government needs to look at the three critical aspects in the energy sector to ensure that the Ugandan population has access to reliable and affordable power.
The critical aspects that need a lot of attention include high connectivity costs, high tariffs, and low levels of transmission and distribution networks that are failing to provide consumers with access to available power.
To address the above energy challenges, the Energy Policy for Uganda 2023 needs to ensure that its objectives of strengthening electricity generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructures, increasing electricity access and uptake of alternative modern forms of energy, and enhancing utilization of energy-efficient practices and technology, among others, are well implemented.
This is because most common Ugandans in rural and urban areas still do not have access to the power that is available due to the high tariffs, high connectivity costs, and low level of transmission and distribution networks.
The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development (MEMD) needs to address these energy sector problems to enable the public to start some small businesses that use electricity. This will help to create jobs among the youth and reduce the pressure imposed on the forests for firewood, among others.
The country already has access power of 1,378.1 MW, but the problem is that a lot of power is not being evacuated to consumers due to the failure by the government to construct the distribution lines.
This is observed by only 58% of the households in Uganda having access to at least one source of electricity in 2022 and the country’s connectivity rate of 28%, which is still the lowest in Africa compared to the sub-Saharan average of 43%.
In addition to that, the low level of connectivity and the high tariffs have also contributed to only 8% of the rural population having insufficient access to modern energy sources and services like improved cook stoves for clean cooking and other sources.
This was according to the national environment management authority’s (NEMA) report for 2022, which indicated that Uganda suffers degradation losses of USD 2.3 billion, of which 25% are wood fuel and 2.6% of Uganda’s forests are cut down annually for firewood and charcoal because of limited access to electricity sources.
For Uganda to achieve the Energy Policy for Uganda 2023 goal and an increase in electricity access from the current 58% to 80% in 2025 and 100% in 2030, the country needs to ensure that electricity tariffs are lowered to enable the common Ugandans to use the available electricity, the connection costs are lowered from Shs700,000 to an affordable price to enable the households staying near the poles to get connected to power, and transmission and distribution networks are also well planned to enable the evacuation of power from the station to the final consumers.
Therefore, I call upon the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development (MEMD) to ensure that high electricity tariffs and high electricity connectivity costs are reduced and distribution lines are constructed immediately after finishing the dam to enable common Ugandans to have access to available power. This will also help the country achieve the goal of the energy policy for Uganda in 2023.
The author is Koto Paul, a research associate and environmental activist.
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