Power outage irks members of Kwania Salon Operators’ Emyooga SACCO
KWANIA – Members of Salon Operators Emyooga SACCOs in Aduku town council in Kwania district are crying over the prolonged power outage that has made them incur losses in the running of their businesses.
The power outage that has persisted since Friday last week has forced some of the salon operators to use expensive sources of energy to run their businesses while most of the members have been forced to shut down their businesses.
Holiver Akello, the manager of Top Star Unisex Salon, says she is running her salon on a generator that consumes fuel worth Shs 40, 000 daily, which she says is costly for her business.
“The problem has persisted for close to one week and I am unable to get money. I wonder how I will refund the Shs 5 million I borrowed from our SACCO if this problem is not fixed,” she said, appealing for immediate response from Umeme, the national power distributor.
Bongoni Okwir Ojok, the proprietor of Jimitex Computer Centre says he has not had power supplied by Umeme for close to five days now, forcing him to rely on the generator, which is expensive.
Kenneth Oruru, the chairperson Kwania Salon Operators’ Emyooga SACCO says most of his members are unable to service their loans due to the power crisis. He threatened to take legal actions against Umeme should the power outage persist.
Stephen Epilu, the Umeme Lira branch manager, says the power outage is a result of the rotting electricity poles along Lira-Apac Highway but said all were being done to fix the problem.
“The problem is about the electric poles. We have dispatched our officers on ground to have the problem resolved swiftly. Let them be patience all is being done to fix the problem,” he said in a telephone interview last Friday.
“But I want to ask the public to be on alert and report some unscrupulous scrap dealers who are fond of stealing copper cables, angle bars and other electrical appliances. This is the main cause of power outage besides other factors such as technical faults and bad weather,” he added.
Catharine Akello, the Kwania district principal commercial officer asked the salon operators to look for better alternative power sources as Umeme works to restore power supply.
Kwania Salon Operators’ Emyooga SACCO which consists of five associations and 150 members was established in 2019 following the 2019 launch of the Presidential Initiative on Job and Wealth Creation dubbed Emyooga to spur a shift from subsistence to market-oriented production.
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