The Parliamentary Ad-hoc Committee investigating the Energy sector has summoned officials from the Electricity Regulatory Authority – ERA to appear before it on Monday and answer queries related to the latest increase in power tariffs announced on Thursday.
The Committee Chairperson, Jacob Oboth-Oboth, says his members were shocked to hear the announcement of the new tariffs at a time when they were finalizing their latest investigation of the power sector, with a view of either reducing it or leaving it at the same level.
ERA officials together with the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, Eng. Irene Muloni, on Thursday shocked power users when they announced during a press conference, a 36 percent tariff increment effective January 15th.
Engineer Muloni said that the increment was forced on them following the removal of a subsidy that had been pertaining for the last 11 years. She said it was better for the subsidies to be transferred to long-term Energy infrastructure development in the country.
Referring to the hike as a bad New Year gift, Oboth-Oboth, the West Budama South MP, says he suspects a bad motive on behalf of government and the regulators because his committee had asked them to halt any planned increases until their report is compiled, debated and recommendations taken.
He says the committee had already finalized up to 70 percent of their work and was preparing to hand over their report when parliament returns from recess in early February.
Oboth-Oboth argues that this increase now makes Ugandan electricity the most expensive on the African continent and one of the highest in the whole world. He says they now want to travel to Kenya to study comparisons with the neighboring country that still operates their power under a government body known as the Kenya Power and Lighting Company.
Oboth-Oboth notes that that one of the areas they suspect is increasing the cost of power in the country is over splitting of the power company thereby increasing the cost of administration, a case Kenya has avoided.
He explains that there is no need to rush the implementation of the new tariffs and asked ERA to wait until they finish their investigation.
