Power consumers in Kabale district are up in arms following the total outage that started on Sunday. Prior to the shutdown, the area had experienced an intermittent power supply for two weeks.
Brian Munanura, the manager of Sino Minerals Investments, an iron ore mining company based in Buhara sub-county, says that the power shutdown has taken a huge toll on their plant.
According to Munanura, during normal power supply, they are able to crush 70 tonnes of iron ore per hour. He, however, says that they are now crushing between 40 to 50 tonnes of iron ore per hour resulting from the power shutdown and spend 35 liters of fuel power hour.
Barnabas Tugumisirize, the Manager of Freedom Radio in Kabale town, says that it has become expensive to finance their operations because they now run two generators resulting from the shutdown.
According to Tugumisirize, they now shut off their broadcast at night in order to cut down the cost of fuel. He explains that the radio spends between 30,000 and 40,000 to fuel the generators per hour.
Vanansio Mbabazi, a business operator in Kabale town questions why the government failed to repair Maziba dam as well as extend power from Mivumbe dam in Maziba sub-county to Kabale town and the neighboring areas.
Hope Tukamushaba, the manager of Kigezi Diary in Kabale Municipality, says that the diary is now spending between Shillings 120,000 and 220,000 to fuel the generator on a daily basis for their milk plant.
Henry Nasasira, the director of Kabale Quality Primary school, and Blessing Arinaitwe, the proprietor of God’s mercy Saloon, say the power shutdown had made their work very difficult. They accuse the power distributor UMEME of failure to explain the power problem as well as rushing to rushing to fix it.
Peter Kajujju, the Head of Communications at UMEME blamed the power outage in Kabale on the breakdown of a transformer at the Kabale substation. He, however, says that efforts are underway to replace the transformer.