Overcentralisation of Uganda’s Electricity Subsector is undermining Service Delivery
Uganda’s electricity subsector is caught in a governance paradox. While generation capacity has expanded to over 2,000 MW and national grid coverage has grown steadily over the past decade, service reliability and last-mile access remain uneven. Many households and small enterprises continue to experience frequent outages, transformer failures, and slow fault response times. Although national access rates have improved, disparities persist—especially in rural and peri-urban areas where infrastructure exists but service delivery is unreliable.
The core problem is not simply infrastructure. It is overcentralised planning, budgeting, and accountability in the electricity subsector, which has left local governments and citizens largely disconnected from energy decision-making.
Centralisation beyond operations: the missing role of local planning and budgeting
Uganda’s electricity sector is not only operationally centralised; it is also centralised in planning and budgeting. Key decisions on network expansion, transformer placement, maintenance schedules, and investment priorities are largely made at national-level institutions. Local governments—where electricity challenges are most visible—have minimal formal authority over infrastructure prioritisation, budgeting, maintenance planning, or monitoring.
This disconnect means that decisions are often made far from the communities they affect, resulting in mismatches between national priorities and local needs.
The planning gap at district and city level
Uganda’s decentralised governance framework requires districts and cities to prepare integrated development plans and budgets. However, energy is often treated as an external sector rather than a core local service, despite its importance for urban development, public service delivery, and economic growth.
A clear example is the absence of dedicated energy officers in most local governments. While sectors such as health, education, and roads are institutionally anchored, energy lacks defined ownership at local level. This creates a coordination gap: electricity is essential across sectors, yet no local structure is responsible for planning and managing it.
“This gap weakens accountability and limits the ability of local governments to advocate for critical infrastructure such as transformers, feeder upgrades, and street lighting—even in rapidly growing urban and peri-urban areas”
Regional comparisons show that this is not inevitable. In Kenya, county governments play an active role in identifying demand hotspots, co-financing projects, and coordinating electrification efforts with national agencies. This has enabled more targeted investments and improved responsiveness to local needs. Uganda, despite having a decentralised governance system, has not institutionalised a similar approach to energy planning.
Interestingly, other sectors within Uganda offer more functional decentralised models. The water sector benefits from regional utility structures that improve responsiveness, while environmental management is supported by district-level officers who strengthen local monitoring and enforcement. The electricity sector lacks equivalent local anchoring.
Weak citizen participation electrifies concern
Limited citizen participation has created a weak accountability ecosystem in which users are treated as passive consumers rather than active stakeholders. Unlike sectors such as water and environment—where community structures and local monitoring systems create feedback loops—the electricity sector offers few structured platforms for citizens to influence planning, budgeting, or performance monitoring.
This has practical consequences. Communities often view electricity infrastructure as “government property” rather than shared assets. As a result, informal systems that typically deter vandalism and theft are weak. Illegal connections, infrastructure damage, and delayed reporting of faults are more common where community ownership is low.
“Electricity losses in Uganda are estimated at around 15–17%, with a significant share attributed to non-technical factors such as theft, illegal connections, and meter tampering. These losses are reinforced by weak local enforcement and limited community engagement”
Vandalism of transformers, poles, and conductors further compounds the problem. A single damaged transformer can disrupt supply to hundreds of households and businesses, leading to prolonged outages, costly repairs, and reduced productivity. These challenges are especially pronounced in fast-growing peri-urban and informal settlements, where enforcement is limited and community engagement is weak.
At the same time, underdeveloped feedback systems delay the reporting of faults and infrastructure damage, slowing response times and increasing inefficiencies.Ultimately, the absence of structured citizen participation creates a governance vacuum: utilities remain distant, local governments are only marginally involved, and communities are disengaged. This combination undermines accountability and contributes to persistent service delivery challenges.
What needs to change
- Uganda must decentralise energy planning and budgeting to close the gap between national decision-making and local service realities. Introducing dedicated energy officers at district and city levels would strengthen technical capacity to coordinate electricity needs, identify infrastructure gaps, and engage utilities more effectively.
- Energy should be integrated into district and city development plans and budgets, elevating it to the same level as roads, health, and education. At the urban level, establishing energy units within municipalities would improve coordination of street lighting, demand forecasting, and infrastructure planning.
- Strengthening citizen participation is equally critical. Providing structured platforms for communities to report faults, prioritise investments, and protect infrastructure would improve accountability and reduce losses. Localised monitoring of service performance—such as outages, response times, and distribution losses—would enhance transparency and enable faster responses to system failures.
- Together, these reforms would bring electricity governance closer to users and improve efficiency at the last mile.
Conclusion
Uganda’s electricity challenge is no longer about generation alone—it is about governance. Without decentralised planning, budgeting, and accountability, service delivery will continue to lag behind investment. Electricity governance must move closer to citizens, where demand exists, rather than remain concentrated within central institutions.