City traders protest power outage
Nasser Road traders hold placards as they demonstrated over power cuts yesterday. Police fired tear gas canisters in the air after people blocked the road, saying they had spent a week without electricity. Photo by Abubaker Lubowa
What you need to know:
Grievances. Traders say they cannot keep buying fuel to run their equipment because they are making losses.
Kampala.
Traders operating on Nasser Road yesterday rioted, protesting failure by power distributor Umeme to restore power supply to the area, saying it was affecting their businesses.
The power outage has lasted for a week and the traders claim their pleas have been ignored by both Umeme and their landlords. Nasser Road is occupied by traders majorly involved in printing and publishing business.
Some of the traders blocked Nasser Road, burnt papers and plastics while others carried placards expressing their discontent. This forced the anti-riot police to intervene and disperse them with teargas.
Ms Beatrice Ssenyonjo, who runs a printing business on Printer’s Arcade, told Daily Monitor that both Printer’s and Miracle arcades have not had power since Saturday last week but neither Umeme nor their landlords had come to their rescue.
“We shall riot until Umeme brings back our power because we have bank loans to settle, the landlords want their rent and our children have to go to school and eat,” Ms Ssenyonjo said.
Mr Emmanuel Bwebale, a machine operator, said electricity is the lifeline of their work and without it they cannot do anything.
“We spend a fortune on expensive fuel every day and we can’t sustain our businesses when we are making losses,” Mr Bwebale said.
Solution underway
The deputy Resident City Commissioner in charge of Kampala Central, Mr Allan Kajik, who spoke to the traders, urged them to keep calm as the matter is resolved.
“Their power should be returned as fast as possible,” he said.
Mr Kajik said he was going to convene a meeting between Umeme, the leaders of the traders and the city authorities to ensure that such blackouts are weeded out of the area.
“We have contacted Umeme people and they are on their way to reconnect the area back on the grid. However, rioting by the traders will not solve anything and we shall be here to maintain law and order,’ Mr Aaron Baguma, the officer in charge of Kampala Central Police Station, said.
Umeme media manager Stephen Illungole said the area network is under refurbishment and maintenance which caused the problem.
“We are improving our network but we can only work at night and that causes delays but by Saturday, they should have a steady supply of power,” he said.
OTHER CASES
This is not the first time that traders operating on Nasser Road are protesting power outages. In November 2013, they took to the street over a four-day power outage which they said was affecting their business. Umeme consequently restored their power. The same thing happened in 2011.
