PARIS: The government of Uganda through its agency, the Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited (UEGCL) has received a grant worth Shs 6.2 billion from a French development agency (AFD) to facilitate the process of undertaking feasibility studies for a number of small hydro-power generation sites. The sites are located in the off grid of West Nile region. They are Okulacere (6.5MW) and Agbinika (2MW). Part of this fund grant shall be used to undertake the review and update of previous studies on the rehabilitation and upgrade of the now defunct Maziba (1MW) located in another far district of Kabale. The targeted areas would benefit from the planned projects by starting mini-factories for value addition but also promote growth aspects of the rural economy by providing jobs and paying some taxes to government. Speaking at the MoU signing ceremony at the Ministry of Finance headquarters in Kampala on May 19, the UEGCL Executive Director Harrison Mutikanga said the studies would end by close of this year to pave way for the construction of the dams.
Finance Minister Matia Kasaija applauded the French government for the financial support and said that the two sites would support the country’s agenda of increasing power generation to boost economic activity and social transformation. These initiatives would help the country achieve its electricity consumption as stated in Vision 2040. The country plans to increase electricity consumption from current levels of 75 kWh per capita to 3668 by 2040. This would also mean the country needs to generate more power from the current 850MW through big and small projects. The French Ambassador to Uganda, Madame Stephanie Rivoal who spoke for AFD said their grant support is intended to support Uganda’s growth agenda embedded in Vision 2040 and the National Development Plan. “We want to support anything related to industrialisation,” Rivoal said. Industrialisation is one of the key components of Uganda’s 2040 development agenda which is running under the theme; “a transformed Ugandan society from a peasant to a modern and prosperous country within 30 years.” Rivoal and Kasaija agreed to work on several plans aimed at strengthening bilateral trade between Uganda and France. Rivoal said that in the coming months over 50 French representatives of private companies would visit Uganda to explore investment opportunities – an event that Kasaija said would very much attract attention from his ministry and the government in general.
