Engineers of Spencon and VS hydro who were contracted by the government to work on the 3.5 megawatts hydro dam at Nyagak in Zombo district have finally switched on the long awaited power after struggling for the last three days.
The power that was switched in phases started in Paidha town council at 8:00pm later to Nebbi at around 10:00pm on Thursday night and now it has finally reached Arua town today at 4:00pm.
The power was switched on after the intervention of Simon D’ Ujanga, the state minister for energy, who personally started giving instructions to the engineers to correct the protection unit in the power house that had failed to correspond to the turbines.
Fabian Ahaisibwe, the operations manager of West Nile Rural Electrification Company that is going to manage the dam, says though they are still doing testing he is now hopeful that the long awaited power will help the people in the region. He says though at the beginning they will be interruptions but these will later stop when the machines stabilize.
He says what is remaining for them is to now embark on extending the power to other districts such as Maracha, Koboko and Yumbe plus other areas such as Packwach Parombo and many others that are supposed to be connected to the grid.
However Eng. Simon D’ Ujanga who is currently in Kampala when contacted on phone says finally he will have powers to challenge people who doubted the construction of the dam. According to D’ Ujanga currently they are still using one of the turbines that is generating 1.75 megawatts because the number of customers is not enough but when the power extension reaches other areas the other turbine would be switched on.
But the switched on of the power has attracted a mixed reactions from power users both from Arua and Nebbi as other welcome it as a positive development while other consumers are still doubting whether the power would be stable.
According to some of the power consumers interviewed randomly in the streets of Arua and Nebbi town about if the power would be stable it would boost development of the region that has been lagging behind since time immemorial while others say they want to see how long the power will take before believing.
//Cue in: “because I have seen it…”
Cue out…has finally come.”//
Nyagak mini hydro power that was supposed to have been switched on five years ago delayed up now after Skoda Export and Sobetra did shoddy work that forced the government to terminate their contracts.
The contract was later awarded to Spencon International and VS Hydro but work also delayed until the German development arm KFW rescued the contract with funding that has finally seen successfully completed. This is the first time people in West Nile will start enjoying clean power after they have been relying on irregular power supplied by WENRECO’s owned thermal plant located in Arua some seven years ago that even broke down.
