Connect 13 households to electricity daily - ERA

Kampala. Each certified electrical wireman has to wire 13 households daily, Ziria Tibalwa Waako, the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA’s) chief executive officer, has said.

Only then will the government’s goal to connect more family units annually to electricity be achieved, she said yesterday.
“Every day, you will have thirteen households hunting for you,” Ms Tibalwa, an electrical engineer, said during ERA’s first annual wiremen’s conference.
“I am not sure if there is anyone of you who has wired thirteen houses in a day. We have rolled out the connections policy; we cannot go back on it,” Ms Tibalwa said.

She said Uganda’s installed power generation capacity will increase from the current 950 megawatts (MW) to over 1,715MW once the government commissions the Isimba and Karuma hydropower plants starting December this year through August 2019.
“Stability of an electricity system is hinged on what we call demand–supply balance. “Therefore, as we increase generation, there is need to connect more people to electricity to leverage redundancy…” Ms Tibalwa added.

ERA’s director legal and authority affairs, Harold Obiga, said there are 1,751 installation permit holders.
“By the end of this year, we should have over 2,300,” Mr Obiga said.

He added, “It is our objective to see that more people have the permits to do the wiring in all these areas on time and that electrical wiring is done in accordance with standards.”

Households though have to pay an inspection fee ranging from Shs20,000 to Shs41,000 to any of the nine distribution utilities that serve their areas to connect them.