BY TOBBIAS JOLLY OWINY
The Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited (UEGCL) has explained the delayed completion of the multi-trillion Karuma Hydropower Dam project.
The construction work progress currently ongoing in Kiryandongo district stagnated above 97 per cent for nearly four years.
UEGCL attributes the slow pace of the works to the Covid-19 lockdown impact and the correctional works on the key defects earlier identified on the plant.
Enock Kusasira, the UEGCL Corporate Affairs manager says once not completed satisfactorily, the safety, reliability, and operability of the power plant are put at great risk and likely to result in frequent plant downtime, maintenance problems, loss of generation revenue, and ultimately reduced durability.
He adds that until now, the contractor is yet to finish some of the corrections of defects which could have been sorted earlier if Covid-19 had not set them back.
According to him, the government wants to avoid possible disasters that could result once the defects that were identified during the installations of the electromechanical and hydro-mechanical components of the dam are not adequately corrected.
When engineers successfully conducted the first phase of tests on key electromechanical and hydro-mechanical installations of the facility in September 2019, it pushed the plant’s completion status from 95 per cent to 97 per cent.
In January 2020 while the plant completion status stood at 97 per cent, the UEGCL chief executive officer Dr. Eng. Harrison Mutikanga assured the government that the project would be commissioned in November 2020 without fail.
But months later in October, while the November commissioning timeline approached, a disagreement between UEGCL and the project contractor Sinohydro Corporation Ltd broke out over the unfixed glitches, setting hopes to commission in November to fade.
While Sinohydro Corporation Ltd claimed that the plant was ready for tests, UEGCL conditioned that it would only be done once particular glitches in the plant are fixed since the works in question form the heartbeat of the power plant.
UEGCL accused the contractor of doing shoddy work and insisted that unless the contractor corrects all the defects, they (contractor) cannot be allowed to start tests or commission the plant since the gravity of the defects are grave and renders the plant unsafe.
