Govt pushes completion of Nyagak III Dam for 3rd time

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development has for the third time pushed the completion of a power dam project in the West Nile Sub-region to September.

The sub-region, currently supplied by a 3.5-megawatt dam in Nyagak, was expected to get an additional 6.6 megawatts on completion of the Nyagak III Dam construction. 

But at the weekend, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, Ms Ruth Nankabirwa, said the dam will be completed in the next two months.

She, however, said this will only be achieved if the government releases Shs28 billion to the contractor. 
“I am impressed by the progress of the work despite the fact that as a government, we have not been able to fulfil our part of the grant that we are supposed to release. The developer has continued to find ways of borrowing money and making sure that work does not stall,” Ms Nankabirwa said on Saturday.

She added: “I pledge that I will continue interacting with the Ministry of Finance to make sure that what the President promised when touring the West Nile region to release the remaining money, which is about Shs28 billion, is released.”

Last year, the contractor, Dott Services, asked the government to provide Shs22 billion to facilitate the completion of the project. 

Ms Nankabirwa has also urged the residents to be patient, saying the government and the contractor are working round the clock to increase power connection in the sub-region. 

But the Padyere County Member of Parliament, Mr Isaac Otimgiu, decried delays in completing the project.

He said: “We are actually disappointed with the progress with which electricity connection in the region is being done. We have had three deadlines, the issue of the minister coming here without MPs actually shows the disconnection, we are not happy and we had a lot of questions to put to her.” 

During President Museveni’s four-day tour in West Nile early this year, angry locals booed Minister Nankabirwa as she updated locals about the progress of the power dam project.  The locals said they were fed up of empty promises by the Energy ministry.

Mr Vijay Kumar Reddy, the resident engineer at the power dam site, said critical works at the plant have been done and that 94 percent of the works have been completed.

“We have completed construction of the dam and surge works. What is ongoing is hydro and electrical mechanics and we hope we are provided with the funds to complete the works,” he said.
Nyagak III will have an installed capacity of 6.6 MW.

But locals say they have waited for too long for the Nyagak III dam and connection to the national grid from Olwiyo station.