By Ritah Kemigisa
The Minister of energy and mineral development Dr Mary Goretti Kitutu has revealed that the government is effective March 1st going to resume freely connecting people who do not require poles with electricity.
Last week MPs asked the government to explain the drastic increase in electricity connection fees following the suspension of the free electricity connection policy.
The policy that has since been amended gives a go ahead to power distribution companies to charge customers who are willing to connect themselves to pay shs 720,000 where no pole is required and shs 2.3 million where one pole is required on top of shs 41,300 inspection fees.
In a statement before parliament, Dr Kitutu said the free policy was suspended because there was no budget to handle all the high number of applications which stood at 200,000 as of July, 2020 and yet the government was also in arrears of shs 103 billion for connections made by Service Providers.
She says the government has imported connection materials worth 87,000 of no pole connections financed by African Development Bank which will arrive this month and an additional 230,000 to be delivered in August.
Meanwhile the government is in advanced stages to secure about shs 1.4 million from the World Bank to support the Electricity Connections Policy.
The minister says the funds are expected to be available beginning the FY 2022123 for a period of 5 years.
