Nairobi — As many as 90,000 electricity consumers in Uganda could end up paying extra for power consumed after it emerged that some meters imported by power distributor Umeme were faulty and not tested by the Uganda National Bureau of Standards.

Sources in the energy sector told The EastAfrican that the meters are "fast running", which means that such a meter will clock a kilowatt of power consumed when the actual consumption is far less, in effect selling short measure to the consumer.

Even more suspicious was the ping-pong between Umeme and Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) as each tried to steer clear of blame for the controversy.

The utility claimed their equipment, including meters, was tested and passed as genuine while the standards body said it does not have the mandate to test and validate Umeme's meters.

Since assuming the portfolio six months ago, Energy Minister Hilary Onek has been vocal about a number of cover-ups in the electricity sub-sector, faulty meters being one of them, the other being high power tariffs.

He repeated his accusations about faulty meters at a public function last week, and they were supported by officials in the sector as well as UNBS who said Umeme's meters are not tested.

"We don't test these meters; it has to do with the regulatory framework. Because initially the power utility was a monopoly, there are no laws mandating UNBS to inspect its equipment," said Bernard Mukwaya, who heads the UNBS electricity desk.

Electricity Regulatory Authority chief executive officer Dr Frank Sebbowa said UNBS had told ERA that it does not have a desk to handle this job, leaving Umeme to its own devices.

"UNBS, which would have been the independent body to test these meters, does not have a test bench. That's what we have been told," said Dr Sebbowa in a telephone interview last week, adding that Umeme has been deliberately slow to introduce prepaid metering, which ERA demanded three years ago.

At issue is a consignment of faulty fast-running meters that were imported some time back and allowed into the market. The EastAfrican could not immediately establish their number, but Umeme spokesperson Charlotte Kemigyisha says it was just a "portion of a bigger consignment."

"What this is about is that there was a batch that came in some time back. It was identified and terminated. Whoever has reported such a faulty meter it has been replaced. So in our books, we don't have such meters, but if it's in someone's house, they have to report it," she said, adding that UNBS actually did inspect the faulty consignment in question."When the meters come in at UNBS, they test, certify and dispatch to us. So in that respect they passed through the proper process."

Ms Kemigyisha did not explain how ordinary consumers were to identify a fast-running meter and while she did not give any numbers, the utility has connected at least 93,000 new consumers to the grid since taking over distribution.

Of Uganda's 3.3 million electricity users, very few have any competence to distinguish between a faulty and a proper electric meter.

In the event that Umeme in-stalled a fast-running meter, the consumer is likely to bleed millions of shillings in power bills to the utility, considering the high power tariffs obtaining here.

What is more, the utility is not keen to replace the faulty meters and has never come out to alert consumers to the possibility of their having such meters on the premises.

Mr Onek says Umeme's immediate former general manager Paul Mare -- who resigned in May -- used to "escalate everything from tariffs to importing quick running meters" in pursuit of profit for the company, a subsidiary of the Commonwealth Development Corporation.

This potentially exposes any customers that joined the utility's network after 2005 to overbilling.

Because of this and other thorny issues in the energy sector -- mainly high power tariffs, poor customer handling, heavy losses on the grid and an over-reliance on costly thermal power -- Mr Onek commissioned a probe that might have serious ramifications for concessionaires in the generation and distribution of electricity.

Meanwhile, two government bodies, the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company and Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Ltd are also in the spotlight for having a possible hand in this racket.

The latter, for instance is meant to supervise Umeme, but it turns out that it has been lax in playing its role.

Reports on the minister's desk, for instance indicate that the company has not vetted Umeme's incoming equipment nor has it certified the concessionaries' investments as required under the concessioning agreement.

The probe, undertaken by audit firm Deloitte and Touche nearly three months ago, is by far the executive's most decisive statement of concern about the embattled utility, which since being awarded the concession in 2005 has had a wretched performance record, with power losses running at 34 per cent, just six per cent lower than at the time of the concession.

Uganda's tariffs are also the highest in the world, second only to Sweden's, and the concessionaire was intent early this year on hiking the tariff, until the minister intervened.

"Umeme was going to increase tariff. But immediately I came in, I stopped this. We are currently looking at Umeme to find a solution to the high cost of electricity. We cannot accept the exploitation of our customers, and tariffs will be reduced with or without the consent of Umeme. We will bring it down by at least 30-40 per cent," said Mr Onek.

I know the shareholders want profit, but it should be reasonable profit. And for utilities, ordinary profit should not go beyond 20 per cent because a utility is a service.

I will not accept poor management, high tariffs and harassment of customers... if Umeme wants to stay on for another year, it has to change: No arrogance, no poor management and poor service to customers."

Umeme was on the verge of increasing tariffs from the present rates, in which domestic consumers pay Ush62 for the first 15 units and Ush426 per unit -- easily the highest power tariffs in the region, compared where Kenya where the equivalent of Ush38 and a maximum of Ush345 is charged on the first 50 units and each subsequent unit consumed.

In Tanzania, the consumer pays Ush10 less than in Uganda.

Watchers of the sector say the high tariff cannot be justified especially when the government has been paying Ush212 billion ($106 million) per year to offset the losses suffered by the distributor, as well as subsidising the utility to the tune of Ush92 billion ($46 million) per annum.

Even as the probe into the performance of firms in the energy sector is going on, the embattled Umeme has installed a Ush6 billion ($3 million) digital monitoring system to improve its poor service.

The utility's spokesperson says the company is well aware of its performance issues sand is now taking "conscious steps to turn its service round" with the launch of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system at Umeme's main substation at Lugogo in Kampala.

SCADA will initially monitor some 35 substations -- about half the total, with the rest to be covered in the second half of next year, heralding a regime of quality, reliability and safety of power supply, said the company's new boss, Charles Chapman.

Umeme's tenure as Uganda's power distributor has long been dogged by power outages, slow response to interruptions and a very high incidence of power losses that the utility has failed to bring within acceptable levels.

On top of this, the company was relying on a crude and inefficient system with a "manual" chart to track leakages and power outages.

In 2005, Umeme took the power distribution concession for 20 years from UEDCL, and was tasked to connect 60,000 new customers by 2010, reducing losses from over 40 per cent to under 20 per cent.

The firm was also to invest $65 million over five years in refurbishing the network as well as improving collection rates and quality on the grid.

Against these performance benchmarks, the utility has a fairly good balance sheet, having met all, except reduction of losses, which now stand at 33.5 per cent.

There have been 93,000 new connections; some $67 million has been invested in network rehabilitation and collection rates stand at 93 per cent.