Rural Electrification: When power lines arrive but the power doesn’t appear to light Uganda’s economy

Uganda’s push to expand electricity access is delivering new power lines and connections across the country, but Parliament has warned that unfinished projects, unreliable supply, vandalism, inadequate planning and gaps in newly created cities continue to undermine the country’s electrification ambitions.

The concerns emerged during Thursday’s plenary debate on a ministerial statement on the status of rural electrification presented by State Minister for Energy Sidronius Okaasai Opolot.

Okaasai told MPs that six of the 11 power lines that were still under construction when the Rural Electrification Agency was mainstreamed into the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development have since been completed and commissioned.

The completed works have delivered 1,780.59 kilometres of medium-voltage lines, 2,646.53 kilometres of low-voltage lines and 981 transformers, connecting 141,400 new electricity consumers.

According to the Minister, all planned consumer connections under the project have been undertaken.

Government is also targeting one million free electricity connections for households requiring one-pole or no-pole services under the Electricity Access Scale-up Project.

So far, 235,906 households have been connected.

The Ministry says additional meter suppliers have been brought on board, and if connection materials remain available, the Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL) is expected to make about 500,000 new connections over the next 12 months.

Beyond grid expansion, Government has distributed about 420,000 off-grid solar systems, reflecting an attempt to extend electricity access to communities where conventional grid infrastructure remains difficult or expensive to establish.

But MPs argued that the headline numbers do not fully capture the reality facing many communities.

MPs demand a fully funded national plan

Kyankwanzi District Woman Representative Ann Maria Nankabirwa called for a comprehensive and fully costed national electrification plan that would give Parliament a clear picture of the resources required to expand access.

“We need to agree as a House that the Ministry presents the overall budget that would lead this electrification of this country at least to 70%,” Nankabirwa said.

She also raised concern about electricity losses, particularly in rural areas where infrastructure has been extended ahead of sufficient customer connections.

Uganda’s electricity losses, she said, are currently estimated at 18–19%, meaning consumers ultimately bear the cost of electricity that is generated or distributed but not effectively consumed.

Nankabirwa also pointed to vandalism of electricity infrastructure as a growing threat to the gains made through rural electrification.

“We have tried to do some connections, but vandalism is taking us back,” she said.

The concern presents a difficult equation for Government: extending the grid requires substantial public investment, but poorly utilised or vandalised infrastructure increases the cost of supplying electricity and can weaken the commercial sustainability of distribution.

New cities, old electricity problems

For MPs representing newly created urban areas, the debate also exposed a mismatch between Uganda’s rapid urbanisation and the provision of basic infrastructure.

Mbarara North Division MP Christopher Bakashaba said parts of Mbarara City, including Biharwe and Kachika, still lack electricity.

“In Mbarara City, we don’t have power. In Biharwe, in Kachika, we don’t have power,” Bakashaba told Parliament.

He questioned whether the rural electrification programme is adequately responding to the needs of areas that have been transformed administratively from rural communities into urban jurisdictions.

“Honourable Minister, you created these cities, you have to give them services,” he said.

Mbale City Industrial Division MP Karim Masaba made a similar argument, noting that many of Uganda’s newer cities were expanded through the annexation of predominantly rural areas.

“You’ll find that the majority or the biggest part of these cities is still the rural part of the city,” Masaba said.

The challenge is significant because city status creates expectations for infrastructure and services, while the physical realities of many newly incorporated areas remain largely rural.

Unreliable power undermines businesses and health services

For some communities, the challenge is no longer simply whether electricity infrastructure exists, but whether the supply is reliable enough to support economic and social activity.

Kioga North County MP Geoffrey Ocen raised concerns over unreliable electricity in Amolatar District, where some areas have poles and wires but communities still struggle to receive dependable power.

“You hardly have power for two days in a week, and this has interrupted businesses, affected operations at the health facility, and affected livelihood of the people,” Ocen said.

He also pointed to Government health facilities that remain without electricity even where distribution lines pass nearby, urging the Ministry to address such gaps.

The concerns illustrate the distinction between electricity access on paper and meaningful access in practice. A community may have a power line nearby, but unreliable supply can still constrain businesses, health facilities, schools and household productivity.

Kapelebyong asks for basic infrastructure

In Kapelebyong District, the problem is even more fundamental, according to County MP Francis Akorikin.

He said eight of the district’s 11 sub-counties remain without electricity, with some communities lacking even basic distribution poles.

“While other parts of the country may have electric poles, some of us don’t even have electric poles. Our problems are different,” Akorikin said.

He singled out Akoromit, Acinga, Okungur and Alito as communities that have yet to receive electricity.

“We have never seen electricity in Akoramit, we have never seen electricity in Acinga, we have never seen electricity in Okungur, we have never seen electricity in Alito. Please Minister, consider Kapelebyong District,” he said.

His concerns highlight the uneven nature of electrification across the country, where some regions are grappling with reliability and network losses while others are still waiting for basic infrastructure.

Contractors under scrutiny

The performance of contractors also came under parliamentary scrutiny.

Masaba questioned why contractors who abandoned earlier electrification projects are being awarded new contracts under the World Bank-funded Electricity Access Scale-up Project.

He said some contractors had installed poles but failed to complete the lines or connect communities.

“We have many contractors and sub-contractors who abandoned the projects, who planted the poles, some of them just dropped them there and didn’t connect,” Masaba said.

He urged Government to ensure unfinished projects are completed before contractors are assigned new programmes.

“Why don’t they come and first connect and complete the lines and programmes that they started on?” he asked.

The issue raises broader questions about project management, contractor performance and value for money in publicly funded infrastructure programmes.

Electricity must power production

For Mawokota North MP Amelia Kyambadde, electricity access should be closely linked to Uganda’s industrialisation and social development agenda.

She said her constituency has electricity coverage of only 27.9%, despite recently becoming part of the Kampala Metropolitan Area.

Kyambadde called for priority connections to value-addition centres, health facilities and schools.

“They have worked on the roads, they have worked on the market, but we have no electricity,” she said.

She also urged Government to broaden its approach beyond grid expansion by investing more heavily in alternative energy sources such as solar and wind.

The same concern was raised by Pader District Woman Representative Lowila CD Oketayot, who highlighted what she described as a major coordination failure involving Government-funded machinery.

She said multi-million-shilling machinery installed in Porogali Subcounty six or seven years ago to support value addition and job creation remains unused because the facility has no electricity.

“We have a multi-million machinery that was procured and installed by Government six, seven years ago, and there is no power. The machinery is lying there,” Oketayot said.

She called for the urgent installation of a step-down transformer to power the equipment.

“How do you procure a machine and then you take it, install it where there is no power? It is just there, a white elephant,” she said.

From connections to productive access

The parliamentary debate underscores a central challenge facing Uganda’s electrification strategy: increasing the number of connections is important, but electricity must ultimately be reliable, affordable and available where it can support productive activity.

The Government’s target of one million free connections and the planned 500,000 additional connections represent a significant expansion of access.

But MPs are demanding that this expansion be accompanied by better planning, stronger contractor supervision, protection of infrastructure, reliable supply and investment in alternative energy systems.

They are also calling for electricity planning to be better integrated with investments in manufacturing, agriculture, health, education and value addition.

For Uganda, the economic value of rural electrification will ultimately depend on what communities can do with the power once it arrives.

Electricity that runs a factory, preserves agricultural produce, powers a health facility, supports digital services or enables a small business to operate for longer hours delivers a different economic return from a connection that exists but receives unreliable supply.

The debate has therefore shifted from simply how many kilometres of power lines Uganda can build to a broader question: how effectively electricity can be turned into jobs, productive enterprises, better public services and inclusive economic growth.

As Government accelerates its electrification programme, Parliament’s message is that the next phase must focus not only on extending the grid, but on ensuring that every investment in electricity infrastructure delivers measurable value to the communities it is intended to serve.