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Masaka residents demand probe into street lighting project
Installed. Solar street lights that have been installed on Edward Avenue in Masaka Municipality. PHOTO BY ALI MAMBULE
What you need to know:
- Issue. They want authorities to explain why the hydro-powered street lights were replaced a few months after installation.
Masaka.
Masaka Town residents have called for investigations into the municipal multi-million street lighting project, where new lights were replaced five months after installation.
The first set of lights were installed on all major streets within the municipality last August under the Electricity Sector Development Project (ESDP) and were to draw power from the national grid supplied by Umeme.
The project was funded by the World Bank at a tune of $1.4m (about Shs3.5b).
However, the street lights were hastily replaced with solar-powered lights during the festive season, with allegations that the authorities had failed to pay utility bills of Shs17m.
Mr Abas Ssonko, one of the residents, said though project implementers have assured them of constant power supply, leaders must explain why they wasted funds on the first set of street lights.
“We are not saying that solar-powered lights are bad, but we want to know how they arrived at that decision since they had already installed hydro street lights a few months ago,” Mr Ssonko, said during an interview last Friday.
So far, more than 200 out of 650 hydro–powered street lights have been replaced.
Solar powered lights had been installed on Yellow Knife Road, which falls under the Uganda Support to Municipalities Infrastructure Development (USIMID )project Batch I.
Mr Swaibu Sulambaaya, also a resident, says switching to solar street lights could have been a result of poor planning by municipal leaders.
“With corruption in government projects it appears that some individuals targeted some kickbacks in the first street lighting project yet they knew that solar lights are efficient and suitable for a town like Masaka,” Mr Sulambaaya said during a Baraza last week.
But to the contrary, Masaka Municipality mayor, Mr Godfrey Kayemba Afaayo, said the first set of electric street lights were part of a donation from government and since the town had spent many years in darkness, they had to embrace the project.
“There is nothing we are hiding. Whatever we are doing is aimed at changing the face of Masaka as we strive to attain a city status,” Mr Afaayo said during an interview last Friday.
He added: “The Ministry of Energy not only delivered and installed the lights but also offered to pay the electricity bills for the first six months after installation.”
About 10 streets in Masaka were lit by electric street lights courtesy of the donation.
Mr Afaayo said, the donation, however, came at a time when the council was also implementing the USMID project batch II, which is also funded by both the central government and the World Bank.
Second phase
Under USIMID project, all roads within the municipality are supposed to be lit by solar powered-street lights, according to Mr Afaayo.
“The solar-powered system was considered as the most efficient way to curb darkness in the streets without accumulating additional power bills. We are spending more than Sh200m on electricity bills for street lights annually, and this is too much for the municipality which has a small revenue base,” he said.
He said the solar-powered street lights, which are being used to replace the electric-powered ones are not purchased as many critics claim.
“The initial plan was to install solar lights on either sides of the streets covered under USMID project, but when we created median islands in the middle of all roads under construction, instead of using two poles, we opted for one and this enabled us to save many batteries and solar lamps which we are now using to lit other streets which were not considered in the USMID project,” Mr Afaayo said.
In the process, the municipality saved more than half of the solar lights on Edward and Jerserby streets, which are currently under construction.
Each of the solar–powered lights installed costs Sh12m, and more than 100 electric lampposts have so far been replaced.
He noted that the solar lights have a life span of five to 10 years.
He said the electric lamp that are being removed from the central business area will be re-installed on the outskirts of the municipality.
