- Nankabirwa said state-run Uganda Electricity Generation Company Ltd (UEGCL) will now operate the plants.
- She said the government was conducting an audit to determine if it owed Eskom any compensation for unrecouped investments.
Uganda’s energy minister said South Africa’s power firm Eskom returned two hydropower plants to Uganda’s government on Tuesday after Ugandan authorities declined to renew its licence. Under a 20-year concession signed in 2002, Eskom had been running the two plants located at the source of the River Nile in Jinja, about 90 km (56 miles) east of the capital Kampala with both plants having a combined installed generation capacity of 380 megawatts.
Last year the government said it would not renew Eskom’s licence when it expired this month and would instead run the plants as part of plans to reduce consumer power costs. According to the government, part of those plans was to reduce private capital in the sector. Energy Minister Ruth Ssentamu Nankabirwa, while taking over the plants from Eskom, said, “We also strongly believe that Eskom has built adequate local capacity that will be able to continue the proper operations and maintenance of the complex.”
In a speech during Eskom’s transfer, Nankabirwa said state-run Uganda Electricity Generation Company Ltd (UEGCL) will now operate the plants. She said the government was conducting an audit to determine if it owed Eskom any compensation for unrecouped investments. She added that the “Government of Uganda is ready to fulfil the outstanding obligations arising from this audit.”
Source: Reuters