Who is stealing electricity transmission lines?
VANDALISM OF TRANSMISSION LINES ASSOCIATED TO SABOTAGE AND LOW MORALE AT UETCL
There is a reported surge of electricity transmission lines vandalism in the country, which could drag Uganda into another resurgence of load shedding or hydro-electric power rationing in the short run as it was about a decade ago.
The new scandalous developments, indicate that Ugandans have to prepare themselves for the losses to be incurred in billions of shillings as the country reverts back to diesel or thermal generated electricity plants at Namanve Industrial Park, run by Jacobsen Elektro Limited and Electromax Limited respectively in the medium-term.
The diesel generators, are meant to boost electrified supply to an already crippled but high demand for electricity especially at peak hours and by Small Medium Industries.
In the long term, the country will further grapple with a very high reinstallation cost of the high-voltage power-tower lines that are being threatened by intensified vandalism if the bad practices are not averted.
Inner connivance due to low morale and sabotage.
Reliable sources at the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited have informed this online-news, that “ sabotage and low morale among the UETCL utility staff are partly to blame in the face of a cruel and mismanaged merger process that will cause massive lay-offs” under the Ministry of Energy’s restructured program.
It has been reported that “some of the UETCL staff have passively laid back their tools” as the power transmitter grapples with increased cases of vandalism and having suffered a lot of mismanagement at top policy levels.
Readers will recall and it is a fact that, the UETCL power transmitter has had bad publicity for over five years, related to over-indulgence of their Board of Director membership in the day-to-day activities of the company, which partly could have led to a recent decision by Government to absorb this company into the main ministry’s structure despite of the marginal profits it banks to the consolidated fund per annum.
Leaked information to this on-line news, confirms that the proposed new structure at Uganda’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, which was literally meant to downsize staff and save wastage, through current duplication of roles by different unbundled utilities including UEGCL, REA and UECTL is simply replicated and aimed at throwing-out some of the senior staff in the different MDAs under the energy ministry. The new structure will be under the proposed Uganda Electricity Company Limited also a corporate entity, and the new departments created so far have a lot of similarities to the unbundled corporate entities.
This situation has on the other hand, promoted laxity, abandoning of duty by staff and at times impunity among UETCL staff plus other MDAs, who have gone ahead to conspire with vandals to breakdown the electricity infrastructure for the emphasis of their continued relevancy in the sector.
One wonders, how a ley person can pick the guts, to cut-down the elegantly built towers and loot highly electrified transmission wires if there wasn’t any conspiracy between the insiders and the actual executors of the vandalism mission.
According to our sources, vandalism and destruction of electricity transmission lines is a chronologically syndicated move, that is orchestrated by different players including those technically able especially in the public and private electricity sector domains. Previously reports have implicated both Umeme and security forces personnel involved in these activities, widely covered in the mass media.
Due to the many years of self-entitlement and feelings of indispensability among members of the MDA’s under the energy sector and other Government agencies that are to be merged, the trend has changed towards reversal of “their” earned achievements and to this extent through destruction of whatever they had put in place meaning that the ultimate loss, falls-back to the tax payer who will foot the bill to recover from the losses.
Amidst these scandalous activities, industrialists, especially owners of the metal milling factories are the prime accomplices and our sources have indicated that “pylons and high-voltage transmission towers are used as alloys to manufacture different metal products, which are on high demand in the country”.
The vandals have now shifted strategy by strategically cutting down the holding poles for several kilometers and let alone gently loading their loot onto trucks using conventional means to the prime factory market.
The laws that are in place, including the Electricity Act (Amended) 2022, have not helped much to protect the electricity sector assets due to both sabotage and participation of the utilities’ staff in the vandalism crime, where offenders would be sentenced by the recently constituted utilities court. On the other hand, private security companies have equally failed to safeguard transmission assets because they suffer from similar challenges concerning internal corruption, and loss of moral for instance they have no expectation of keeping their contracts after the merger!
Attempts to use technology including CCTVs and highly sensitive devices or ICT that could curb the vandalism vice, have been thwarted by suspicion of corruption IN procurement, for instance when UECTL attempted to install such gadgets, the investment cost was so high which would at the end affect the price of electricity sold to the distribution companies per kilowatt.
Unless the current situation changes, the situation at UETCL is very dire and the ministry seems to be firefighting without any clear strategy in place to handle losses to the Government by such anomalies.
Sector under serious technical and administrative disasters.
What UETCL is suffering at the moment, is representative of a bitter financial situation for the final consumer of electricity in future in the country that has to incur a recurrent investment cost as vandals take-over from the actual managers but in connivance,
Apparently, scandals have of recent saddled the sector one example being the recent water slippage through the generation power station dam at Isimba; this rather indicates that the ministry of energy is under serious natural and man induced disasters, which requires serious interventions.
According to a statement from government, the vandals are deliberately sabotaging the electricity access agenda that Government embarked on to ensure electricity for all by 2030. The tampering led to the collapse of five transmission towers, officials said. “More than sh2b is spent annually to replace vandalised power .