The economics of transport, energy

After the reading of the 2020/2021 Budget on June 11, several programmes on the media attempted to make sense of it, discussing the highs and lows.
Many people have praised the Budget, or what was read, since we now know that Finance minister Matia Kasaija read his own budget figures and not what Parliament had passed, citing some windfall in revenue that prompted the change.

I will not get into that because when Speaker Rebecca Kadaga gets concerned, I am at peace that we will at least get an apology.

Many people argued that it was a livelihood budget fit for a time as this. Not everyone was happy. Listening to a radio talk show one evening, I heard a Member of Parliament argue that the Budget was a huge disappointment. It did not reflect the Covid-19 situation.

How could more money be given to transport? And that ‘our people are too poor’ and yet we are heavily investing in electricity, which our people cannot afford.

Over the years, I have heard people complain about the investments in transport infrastructure as much as they complain about potholes and bad roads, rickety bridges in some places and communities cut off from each other after heavy rains, often laced with loss of lives.

It often makes me wonder how the transport problems can be fixed if they are not given money, and a lot of money because transport is not a cheap venture.

I have also heard people complain about the amount of electricity we have and the high cost to consumers (even for me).

The more recent complaint, which the MP and other government officials have alluded to in the recent past is the presumed cost of storing electricity when Karuma dam is commissioned, adding onto the national grid 600 Kilowatts that apparently we shall not need.

Some other people believe that in order to save the environment, we must also stop thinking about hydroelectricity, stop generation and focus more on cleaner forms of energy like Norway. The point is, we are Uganda.

Accessible transport infrastructure and affordable energy are two things I am passionate about. Not that I do not like health, education and communication which are my other passions, but because they are critical enablers for increasing access to health, education and communication.

Transport and energy are also accelerators for trade, manufacturing, distribution of agricultural products and access to markets. We cannot speak industrialisation without them.
This narrative of our people being too poor reminded me of my growing up years in Nebbi. We had no electricity. We blissfully went to school and came home, played and slept early.

We never did home work. It was useless cleaning our shoes each day because the dust would be upto the hair on your head and eyebrows by the time you get to school and back home. For many, it was safer saving shoes for church.

We had no piped water either. So from school there was the trip to the borehole. I still remember vividly my first trip to Warr Girls joining Senior One in 1993 with the road and the lorry we used forever painted in my mind. It was hard to imagine another world existed except in stories.

Yet, the talk in town as I grew older and people made the case for Nyagak power to be built so that West Nile could have reliable electricity, was that someone senior in government had wondered about who needed electricity in Nebbi.
‘The people are too poor and live in grass thatched houses. They cannot afford electricity’. That is how marginalisation happens. So for years, we had electricity run from 7pm to 10pm. Most of us never dreamt of having it in our homes.

My parents got electricity when I was working for Umeme in Kampala in the mid-2000s. The connection bill WENRECO gave us was shocking. But getting it for my parents was magical. I dream that in our generation, no community will only hear about electricity.

Early this year, I asked Simon Kasyate, the corporate affairs manager at Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited some difficult questions. He offered to take me to Karuma.

I spent half the day underground, talking to people at the site, listening to stories and what the last years of the project have meant for the community. I have never written about my trip beneath the ground because I don’t know how to, but it was worthwhile.

I would like to invite that MP and people like him to be educated on the numerous possibilities of having available, accessible and affordable electricity for poor people.

We cannot start by asking what poor people will do with electricity or good roads, but instead, what these can do for poor people, their children and communities.

Ms Maractho is the head and senior lecturer, Department of Journalism and Media studies at UCU.
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