Kampala — SEEKING to check the persistent customer anger over faulty energy bills, Umeme has signed a contract with a Spanish company to supply it with a new customer care and billing system.

The project, to cost Umeme $8 million (about Shs14 billion), will reportedly take 14 months deploy the software.

Mr Paul Mare, Umeme's managing director, noted at a press briefing yesterday that the new billing was prompted by the fast growth of the customer base, subsequently outstripping the capacity of the existing system.

"We will be better able to track our customers and interact more with them. We will also eliminate the possibility of a customer paying for more than he/she has consumed," he said.

Umeme currently uses an outmoded system it inherited from the defunct Uganda Electricity Board. Its software and hardware was described by Mr Mare as "oddly unique" because it is only being used in Uganda and is not supported by any manufacturer.

That puts Umeme's entire customer data at great risk since in case of a systems breakdown, it would be difficult to fix and salvage it without support from the system's original manufacturers.

The new system is expected to improve customer relations management, metre reading, bill production, customer accounting, credit management, receipting and payment processing.

Power consumers, particularly in the domestic category, have perennially complained of unfair billing from Umeme, forcing many to resort to stealing power through informal connections. This has in turn cost Umeme billions of Shillings. The new cussoftware is reportedly being used in a number of other African countries including Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.