Once again a victim of Umeme bills delivery and disconnection rackets

A few days ago, a stock broker told me that Umeme shares were available and I told him that Umeme was not fit to be floated on the Stock Exchange because it is not a profit-making company. As if they had heard my remarks, a few days later on July 23, they dispatched a team of three people to disconnect electricity from my house for a bill I have not yet received.

These people had come the day before but they did not disconnect power. They came back the next day when I happened to be home and I showed them evidence that I had paid all the bills delivered to me. They said they would nevertheless give me a disconnection order, which I refused to accept since I had no pending bill. They said since I was proving difficult, they would disconnect me anyway. Indeed, a few minutes later - at about 11 a.m., power was disconnected.

I immediately went to the Umeme office at Kitintale where I talked to a young lady who was said to be the one responsible for such matters. I showed her my payment receipts against all bills so far delivered. She moved up and down between offices and I moved behind her to see what she was doing. Eventually, I asked her why she was not writing down my complaint and she said she was checking something, meaning that, perhaps, I was telling a lie. I asked for the bill for which I was disconnected but I did not get one. She checked some papers, but I got no word from her as to why I had been disconnected.

Eventually, I left in disgust at what is obviously an inefficient outfit. Power eventually came back at about 3 p.m., but up to now, the current bill for which power was disconnected, has not yet been delivered. This is the Umeme that wants to sell shares to the public.

I had occasion to write about a similar incident that befell me sometime back and I got some interesting feedback from people who frequently suffer from Umeme malpractices. They told me that there is a bills delivery and disconnection racket. It is said the company, which delivers bills takes its time to enable its counterpart, which disconnects consumers, to accomplish its work before bills are delivered. Indeed I have noticed that bills are delivered long after the payment due date.

Therefore, on the face of it, most consumers are usually late in settling their bills and so disconnection can rightly be made. If you pay expeditiously as I did, then the disconnecting company can base its actions to disconnect a consumer on the amount on the late undelivered bill, as they did in my case. The existence of possible collusion between the companies delivering bills and disconnecting consumers is, therefore, not far-fetched.

The fees paid to each company are probably based on the number of bills delivered, or the number of disconnections made. If bills are delivered on time, then there would be fewer disconnections, thus affecting the income of the company with a disconnection contract.

Either way, Umeme revenue collection is affected because bills are settled late and when a disconnection is made, a consumer uses less electricity than he/she would have used, thus again adversely affecting the revenue collection of Umeme. Since inefficient revenue collection affects the profitability of Umeme, the Capital Markets Authority should seriously look into this issue before allowing Umeme to sell shares to the public.

Corruption often develops syndicates or networks and they fight back when new initiatives threaten them. Thus it is not surprising that the installation of pre-paid meters has stalled even in a pilot area of Kitintale. If pre-paid meters became generalised, the contracts for delivery of bills and disconnection would be no more.

Thus clearly, there are people with a stake in the status quo, just like Umeme has a stake in the status quo. All bills attract a service charge, which fluctuates with the amount of the bill i.e the higher the bill, the higher the service charge. Clearly, pre-paid meters should not attract any service and consequently, Umeme is in no hurry to install them.

Mr Ruzindana is a former IGG and former MP.
a_ruzindana@yahoo.com