By Atwikirize Barnabas
In an era where electricity and clean water have become fundamental drivers of economic growth, technological advancement, industrialisation and improved living standards, persistent power and water outages in Uganda raise serious questions about the efficiency of public service delivery. Why should a community remain without electricity or piped water for several hours, an entire day or even several days while households, businesses and institutions continue to shoulder the financial burden of accessing these essential services?
The intermittent supply of electricity and water is more than an inconvenience. It is an economic challenge, a public service concern and a question of accountability. For a country aspiring to achieve economic transformation and industrial growth, reliable access to these essential utilities should be treated as a priority rather than a privilege.
According to the Economic Policy Research Centre’s Uganda Business Climate Index, 42% of businesses experienced some form of electricity instability between April and June 2025, while UEDCL reported a System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) ranging from 5.4 to 9.16 interruptions per month in its FY2023/25 annual report. For a small business in Kyengera or Kyanja, even a few hours without electricity can mean lost sales, spoiled refrigerated goods, disrupted services and additional expenditure on backup power. The challenge, therefore, is not simply expanding electricity access, but ensuring that supply is consistent and dependable.
The Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) and UEDCL should strengthen public reporting on outage frequency, duration, causes and restoration times, with performance data disaggregated by service area. ERA’s published sector statistics also show that distribution losses increased from 16.7% in 2024 to 18.1% in 2025, highlighting another area requiring attention. Government investment in transformers, substations and distribution lines must be accompanied by transparent performance targets and accountability for service delivery. Uganda’s economic transformation cannot depend on electricity connections alone; it requires a power supply that enables households to live with dignity and businesses to operate productively.
The economic cost of unreliable utilities
Electricity is central to the functioning of almost every sector of the modern economy. From manufacturing plants and supermarkets to hospitals, schools, pharmacies, banks, restaurants and small-scale enterprises, businesses depend on a stable power supply to operate efficiently.
When electricity goes off unexpectedly, business operations are disrupted. Refrigerated products may spoil, electronic payment systems may become unavailable, production schedules may be interrupted and customers may be forced to seek services elsewhere. Businesses that depend on computers, internet connectivity, machinery and other electrical equipment are particularly vulnerable.
For small and medium-sized enterprises, the consequences can be severe. Unlike large corporations, which may have the financial capacity to invest in generators and alternative power systems, smaller businesses often operate on limited capital. Purchasing fuel, maintaining backup generators or investing in solar power introduces additional operating costs that ultimately reduce profits.
The same applies to water supply interruptions. Water is indispensable to households, restaurants, hotels, healthcare facilities, schools, cleaning services, manufacturing enterprises and many other economic activities. When piped water is unavailable, businesses may be forced to purchase water from alternative sources, increasing their operating expenses. Households, particularly those with limited incomes, also bear the burden of finding alternative supplies.
Consequently, unreliable electricity and water undermine productivity, increase the cost of doing business and place additional pressure on the ordinary Ugandan.
Paying more for less: Is the consumer being treated fairly?
One of the most frustrating aspects of these disruptions is that consumers are expected to meet their financial obligations even when service delivery remains inconsistent.
Electricity and water bills can represent significant monthly expenses for households and businesses. Consumers are expected to pay for the services they use, yet prolonged or recurring interruptions can leave them questioning whether the quality and reliability of the services they receive justify the costs they incur.
This raises a fundamental question: What mechanisms exist to protect consumers when essential utility services repeatedly fail to meet reasonable standards of reliability?
The concern is not simply that electricity and water sometimes go off. Technical faults, scheduled maintenance, extreme weather and unforeseen circumstances can affect even well-managed utility systems. The more important question is whether such interruptions are minimised, communicated in advance where possible, resolved promptly and followed by appropriate accountability.
When consumers receive little or no information about the cause of an outage, how long it is likely to last or what is being done to restore supply, frustration naturally increases.
A customer who pays a monthly bill should not be left entirely in the dark, both literally and figuratively, about the status of an essential service.
This does not mean that every interruption amounts to consumer fraud or deliberate exploitation. However, persistent failures, poor communication and inadequate accountability can create a reasonable perception that consumers are not receiving fair value for their money. Utility providers must therefore demonstrate that they are committed not only to collecting revenue but also to delivering reliable services.
Where is the missing link?
Uganda has qualified engineers, economists, administrators, planners and other professionals with the expertise required to manage complex infrastructure systems. Why, then, do recurring power and water disruptions remain a concern in some communities?
The answer may not lie in a single failure. Rather, several institutional, technical, financial and managerial factors may contribute to the problem.
First, inadequate preventive maintenance: Infrastructure requires regular inspection, servicing, replacement of ageing components and timely intervention before minor faults become major failures. Where maintenance is delayed or insufficient, equipment breakdowns can lead to prolonged interruptions. Preventive maintenance should therefore be a central component of utility management rather than an activity undertaken only after a system fails.
Second, weaknesses in infrastructure planning and investment: Population growth, urban expansion, industrial development and increasing demand for electricity and water place pressure on existing infrastructure. If investment in distribution networks, water treatment facilities, storage capacity, substations and transmission systems does not keep pace with demand, service reliability may deteriorate.
It is therefore important to distinguish between the availability of electricity or water at the national level and the ability to distribute it consistently to individual communities. A country may have substantial electricity generation capacity, for example, while particular areas continue to experience interruptions caused by faults or limitations in the distribution network.
Third, delayed fault detection and response: When an outage occurs, the speed with which it is identified, diagnosed and resolved matters considerably. Inadequate monitoring systems, limited technical resources, logistical challenges or poor coordination between departments may delay restoration.
A fault that could be resolved quickly with effective reporting and a well-equipped response team may consequently leave a community without service for much longer than necessary.
Fourth, weak accountability and performance management: Public service delivery requires clear responsibilities, measurable performance targets and consequences for persistent underperformance. If institutions are not adequately assessed on outage frequency, restoration times, maintenance effectiveness and customer satisfaction, there may be insufficient incentive to address recurring problems systematically.
However, accountability must be evidence-based. Not every outage indicates negligence, and not every delay can be attributed to incompetence. The objective should be to identify the actual cause of each failure and establish whether it resulted from technical limitations, inadequate resources, poor planning or avoidable management weaknesses.
Fifth, poor communication with consumers: Even where a technical fault cannot be avoided, communication can be improved. Consumers should receive timely updates about scheduled maintenance, unexpected outages, estimated restoration times and alternative arrangements where appropriate.
A community that understands the nature of a disruption and receives regular updates is better placed to plan its activities than one left without information.
Ultimately, the missing link may be a combination of inadequate maintenance, insufficient investment in distribution infrastructure, slow emergency response, weak performance oversight and limited transparency. Establishing the relative importance of these factors requires reliable outage data and independent assessment rather than speculation.
What should be done? Practical solutions for Uganda
If Uganda is serious about socioeconomic transformation, reliable electricity and water supply must be treated as essential components of national development. The following measures deserve priority.
Strengthen preventive maintenance: Utility providers should adopt comprehensive maintenance schedules supported by regular infrastructure inspections and risk assessments. Ageing equipment, vulnerable power lines, leaking water pipes, overloaded distribution networks and frequently failing components should be identified and addressed before they cause major disruptions.
Preventive maintenance may require investment in the short term, but it can reduce the frequency and cost of emergency repairs over time.
Invest in reliable distribution infrastructure: Improving electricity generation alone cannot guarantee uninterrupted supply to every consumer. Investment must also extend to transmission and distribution networks, substations, transformers, protective equipment and modern monitoring technologies.
Similarly, water infrastructure requires adequate treatment capacity, storage reservoirs, pumping systems, reliable distribution pipelines and contingency arrangements.
Infrastructure development should be informed by population projections, industrial demand, urban growth and the specific vulnerabilities of individual communities.
Establish clear outage response standards: Utility providers should establish and publish measurable performance standards covering fault acknowledgement, response times, estimated restoration periods and communication with affected customers.
These standards should distinguish between different types of faults and emergencies rather than impose unrealistic deadlines for every situation.
Performance should be monitored through regular reporting. Communities experiencing repeated or unusually prolonged outages should receive targeted investigations to establish the underlying causes and prevent recurrence.
Improve communication and public accountability: Consumers should have access to convenient channels for reporting outages, tracking complaints and receiving updates. These may include SMS notifications, mobile applications, telephone hotlines, websites and verified social media platforms.
Where an outage affects a large area, the responsible provider should explain the cause when reasonably established, provide an estimated restoration time where possible and communicate significant changes to that estimate.
Regular public reports should also disclose information about outage frequency, restoration performance and progress in addressing recurring failures. Transparency would help consumers understand the challenges while enabling regulators and the public to assess performance.
Strengthen independent regulation and consumer protection: The relevant regulators should ensure that electricity and water providers comply with applicable service standards and consumer protection requirements. Complaints about prolonged outages, inaccurate billing, inadequate communication or recurring service failures should be handled through accessible and transparent procedures.
Where the applicable legal and regulatory framework provides for compensation, billing adjustments or other remedies, consumers should be able to understand and access them without unnecessary difficulty. Regulators should also investigate persistent failures and require corrective action where evidence establishes that service providers have fallen short of their obligations.
Promote alternative and resilient energy solutions: Uganda should continue encouraging appropriate investments in solar energy, battery storage, energy-efficient equipment and other reliable backup solutions. For businesses that cannot afford prolonged interruptions, access to affordable financing for alternative energy systems could improve resilience and reduce dependence on emergency diesel generators.
However, alternative energy should complement, not replace, the responsibility to maintain dependable public electricity infrastructure. Consumers should not be forced to bear excessive additional costs simply because the primary system is unreliable.
Develop water security and emergency supply plans: Water providers and local authorities should identify communities that are particularly vulnerable to prolonged supply interruptions.
Depending on local conditions, solutions may include additional storage capacity, backup pumping arrangements, repairs to vulnerable pipelines, alternative supply connections and emergency water distribution for critical facilities.
Hospitals, schools, densely populated settlements and other locations with urgent water needs should receive particular attention in contingency planning.
Long-term planning should also consider water conservation, protection of water sources and the sustainable management of demand.
Make service delivery a measurable management responsibility: Reliable service delivery must be reflected in the performance objectives of the institutions and managers responsible for it.
Management assessments should consider not only revenue collection and financial performance but also service reliability, maintenance efficiency, complaint resolution, customer satisfaction and the cost of avoidable disruptions.
Where recurring failures are identified, institutions should develop corrective action plans with clear responsibilities and timelines.
At the same time, engineers and frontline technical teams must receive the tools, training, staffing and logistical support necessary to perform their duties effectively. Accountability should be accompanied by adequate resources and sound management.
A call for responsible leadership
Uganda does not lack people with the technical knowledge required to improve electricity and water supply. The challenge is to ensure that expertise is translated into reliable services through effective planning, adequate investment, disciplined maintenance, institutional coordination and accountability.
Government, utility providers, regulators, local authorities and consumers all have roles to play. Government must provide an enabling policy and regulatory environment, utility providers must maintain and improve their systems, regulators must enforce applicable standards, and consumers must use services responsibly and report faults through appropriate channels.
Nevertheless, the primary responsibility for maintaining the infrastructure and delivering the services rests with the institutions legally mandated to provide them.
Leadership should therefore be judged not merely by policy announcements, infrastructure launches or revenue collected, but also by the reliability of the services people experience in their homes, workplaces and communities.
When a business loses productive hours because of a preventable power failure, when a health facility struggles because of a prolonged water interruption, or when a household must spend additional money to obtain an essential service, the consequences extend beyond the immediate outage. They affect productivity, household welfare, business confidence and public trust.
These are not minor inconveniences in a developing economy. They are challenges that deserve systematic attention.
Conclusion
Electricity and water are fundamental to modern life and economic development. Their reliability directly affects the cost of doing business, the welfare of households, the performance of public institutions and the confidence citizens place in service providers.
Uganda must therefore move beyond repeatedly responding to outages and adopt a more preventive, transparent and accountable approach to utility management.
The public deserves reliable services, timely information, fair treatment and effective mechanisms for resolving complaints. Businesses deserve an environment in which avoidable utility disruptions do not continually undermine their productivity and competitiveness.
The question is no longer simply why power and water go off. It is whether the institutions responsible for these services have the systems, resources, incentives and accountability mechanisms necessary to minimise interruptions and restore services promptly when failures occur.
A country cannot sustainably pursue industrialisation, digital transformation and improved household welfare while treating reliable electricity and water as secondary concerns.
The time has come for Uganda to place service reliability at the centre of utility management. Citizens are not merely sources of revenue; they are consumers whose needs and legitimate expectations must guide public service delivery.
The ultimate measure of progress should not be what institutions promise, but what ordinary Ugandans can reliably access.
Author: Atwikirize Barnabas
Email: [email protected]
