THE PERFORMANCE OF THE FREE ELECTRICITY CONNECTION POLICY IN UGANDA

Abstract

This study provided an analysis of the free electricity connection (FEC) in Uganda’s household and to describe how electricity reforms in Uganda will enhance the country to achieve universal electricity. Ugandans on the electricity grid in the country is still low in spite of the policy due to high costs experienced during house wiring, acquiring a wiring certificate and inspection paid to Umeme as the electricity distributor in the country. The study used an exploratory research design to explore the level of access to electricity in both rural and urban areas given the growth in population in Uganda. The data used was secondary and it was obtained from UMEME and World Bank development indicators. The analysis involved descriptive statistics, an independent t test, correlation, Spearman’s rank correlation, and Pearson’s correlation. The results indicated that, Rural Electrification Agency (REA) strongly managed to make more connections (138,895) at a rate of 231.5 USD, under REA, it took 94 waiting days to make 138,895 connections, the number of electricity connections made through the no pole and pole services had different variances from January to July 2020 as indicated by a P-value of 0.000 which is below 0.05 level of significance, access to rural electricity increased to 38.02% in 2018 from 24.41% in 2017 recording a percentage of increase of 13.61%, the growth in population has a strong positive and significant association with access to electricity in rural areas of Uganda (r=76.9%, P-value<0.01), there is a significant and positive strong relationship between population growth and urban access to electricity (r=85%, P-value<0.01). The findings indicate that the free connection policy has played a significant role towards improving access to electricity in Uganda.