New Isimba transmission line vandalised
Keep Reading
Unknown people on Christmas eve vandalised the new Isimba transmission line, causing a burden on the tax payer to foot bill for a replacement.
According
to a tweet by Uganda Electricity
Transmission Company Limited (UETCL), the company whose primary purpose is to
make bulk electricity purchases and transmit the electricity along high voltage
wires to local and foreign distribution points, the incident happened on
Monday evening.
“Some
very ungrateful Ugandans last evening vandalized the new Isimba transmission
line,” a tweet from UETCL yesterday.
According
to UETCL spokesperson, Pamela Byoruganda, it is unfortunate that people would
do such a thing whose impact goes to the innocent tax payers.
“It
is unfortunate, now we shall have to restring, and by procedure once a wire
goes down, you can’t use it again. You must use a fresh wire, these wires are
imported at a cost and this cost comes directly to UETCL which must tap into
the pockets of tax payers,” Pamela said.
“This is a new line that was vandalised, meaning we can’t energise it now hence delays,” she added.
According
to Byoruganda, the incident will now affect flow of electricity. She also says
that the vandalism affected the fibre cable which is a communication system.
Byoruganda
condemned ‘selfish’ acts by Ugandans who have made it a habit of vandlising
infrastructure.
She said that all over the country, some people are vandalising power pylons (Towers), cables, in the end causing an expense towards the tax payers as well as power blackouts.
In
January last year, a tower along the new Tororo- Opuyo- Lira 132KV power
transmission line was vandalized, causing power blackout in Eastern Uganda.
“Byoruganda
says that vandalism of towers compromises their strength hence leads to
transmission break down.
“A
tower cannot fall alone, it must bring down other towers.”
The
Minister for Energy, Irene Muloni recently condemned vandalism, calling for
stronger punishment for those found in the act.
