By Mulengera ReportersThe leadership of the Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources deliberately dedicated Wednesday and Thursday this week to interacting with a delegation of Energy Sector officials. They were led by State Minister for Energy Olupot Okasai. The delegation comprised of top leaders of the line agencies like UEDCL, UETCL, the electricity sector regulator ERA and UEGCL. During the interface sessions, chaired by Kazo MP Dan Kimosho, the MPs expressed frustration over the fact that the electricity supply and the loadshedding situation had only gotten worse after the exit of UMEME. Since April last, the GoU-owned UEDCL has been in charge of Uganda’s electricity distribution project, having replaced private company UMEME which had handled the same during the preceding 20 years under a concession arrangement. The MPs had just returned from their weeks’ long field tour of the nine BuBu firms which UEDCL has been relying on to purchase transformers to operate power sub stations, purchase electricity meters to facilitate new connections, cables, wires and other things. The tour was preceded by the realization that part of the reason why the post-UMEME era loadshedding was resulting from the fact that BuBu-related procurement reservation clauses were compelling UEDCL to keep buying transformers and other supplies from BuBu firms some of which had quality and quantity-related capacity problems. BuBu requires government entities like UEDCL to purchase local content and capacity by purchasing from Ugandan local manufacturers in order to enable them grow their capacity and help the government eliminate importation of the same supplies. The President believes that the dollars used for such importation should remain in the country. Having to buy from low-grade companies simply because they are Ugandan firms sometimes condemns UEDCL to purchasing substandard equipment which can’t adequately support the distribution network sustainability. In the end, the UEDCL management led by Ag MD Engineer Joselynne R Rwabwogo admitted this indeed was part of the problem. The Ag MD revealed that UEDCL was mitigating capacity-related problems by outsourcing and buying stuff from more capable suppliers from outside the country-through direct procurement to buy time for the local firms to build capacity. During the Wednesday session, MPs led by Allan Atugonza (Buliisa) and Bulambuli’s Sarah Wekomba claimed that loadshedding was also resulting from rampant acts of vandalism through which plenty of electricity network distribution infrastructure has over the years been dismantled and stolen. Its then sold off as scrap. Information before the Committee shows that hundreds of Ugandans have been charged and prosecuted over terrorism offences deriving from vandalism. More than 38 vandalism-related cases have been investigated and concluded by Police CID across the country over the past few years. There have been convictions on some. The MPs wildly claimed, in the presence of the officials, that there is credible information that a former UEDCL employee is working with rogue-minded insiders to vandalise and steal electricity network equipment. That its this stolen equipment that gets repurposed and very expensively sold back to UEDCL by some of the 9 BuBu companies prequalified to supply UEDCL. As UEDCL and Energy Ministry officials uneasily turned in their seats, one of the MPs claimed to have intelligence information indicating that there is a conspiracy by a powerful cabal in the electricity sub sector working very hard to make sure that the UEDCL project fails and Ugandans become very angry so that a UMEME-like power distribution company is once again re-enacted into the Ugandan electricity space. The MPs asserted that it was even a mistake for some of the former UMEME employees to be integrated into UEDCL. It was claimed those are part of the Kawukumi working as proxies of mafia actors determined to destroy UEDCL from within. The MPs also claimed that these mafia actors are working closely with rogue-minded public officials within the electricity sub sector. “It may be impossible to bring back the exact UMEME, which is why they are working hard to replicate the situation and bring in another private power distribution company,” one of the MPs said. This sparked off a lot of anger from MPs like Naome Kabasharira (Rushenyi in Ntungamo) who declared that such would only happen over her dead body. It was made clear that much as Ugandans are unhappy with the ongoing loadshedding problem, they aren’t prepared for another UMEME. This news website understands that forces determined to return Uganda to a UMEME-like situation are so deeply entrenched to the extent that even the ouster of former MD Mwesigwa and old UEDCL board was partly fermented by such actors who saw the MD emeritus as a major road block. But the government seems determined to ensure that the UEDCL project succeeds. This will require urgently reorganizing the governance of the company which is being addressed by putting in place the new board whose first priority business will be the appointment of substantive management top bosses since currently majority of them are serving in acting capacity. Regulator ERA’s Director Economic regulation Director Geoffrey Okoboi on Thursday told the Committee that the list of new board nominees had already been presented to Cabinet for the Ministers to make their mandatory input. Whoever becomes new MD will have to contend with members of a very powerful Kampala lobby who used to eat big under UMEME and remain actively engaged to ensure that such status quo is re-enacted. During the two days’ interface, the MPs seemed clearly disappointed that the President’s original intentions for the BuBu reservation clauses are far from being met because local firms haven’t only failed to build the anticipated capacity but have also continued to constrain the effective execution of the UEDCL mandate because of their inability to supply things like transformers, wire cables and electricity meters on time and in the prescribed quality and quantity. 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