Top Umeme officials were on Wednesday grilled by a security team over increased vandalism of power transmitters and load-shedding.
The security team comprising of at least five resident district commissioners, army and police officers, tasked Umeme managers to explain the alleged involvement of their staff in vandalizing electricity installations and escalating power outages in various parts of the country.
The Umeme team led by managing director, Charles Chapman and Sam Zzimbe, the general manager for regulatory affairs, appeared at the meeting which took place at Hotel Brovad in Masaka town.
The security committee meeting was convened by Bamusedde Bwambala, the RDC Masaka and it was attended by other RDCs for Lwengo Grace Kaboyo, for Lyantonde Aida Bikorendwa, for Rakai David Kaboyo and for Mayuge Martha Asiimwe as well as top army and police officers in the Masaka area.
Bwambale explained to the Umeme officials that they were compelled to convene the meeting to demand an explanation on the persistent load shedding in the area, which is a threat to national security. The district officials accused Umeme managers of sabotaging government by failing to address the persistent load shedding.
Aida Bikorendwa, the RDC Lyantonde and her counterpart for Rakai, David Kaboyo, asked the Umeme officials to explain why people arrested in connection with vandalizing power installations are always dressed in Umeme uniforms. Bikorendwa attributed the power outages to the failure by Umeme to address vandalism of transformers, which has sparked off protests by traders.
Martha Asiimwe, the RDC for Mayuge accused Umeme of running a racket involving vandals with the aim of tarnishing the government image. Asiimwe said that they arrested several thugs in Mayuge and Iganga in connection with transformer vandalism in the area, but they were released.
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Brig. Garvas Mugyenyi, the Masaka Armored Brigade Commander described the failure by Umeme to wipe out transformer vandalism as an act of terrorism. Mugyenyi advised Umeme to have coordinated load shedding to avoid destroying people’s properties by power surges.
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But Sam Zzimbe, the Umeme Regulatory Affairs Manager said they have done everything possible to stop the destruction of transformers but they seem to be failing. Zzimbe admits that some Umeme officials could be conniving with thugs to vandalize their transformers but they have not arrested any member of their staff. Zzimbe says they have so far lost over 120 transformers since the year begun with areas such as Masaka, Mbale, Iganga and Jinja registering the highest number of cases. He explains that they have lost over 1.2billion shillings to replace the vandalized transformers.
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Currently, Kyotera, Kinoni, Mbirizi are in complete blackout due to transformer vandalism.
