Six months after Uganda's electricity distribution licence reverted from Umeme to state-owned UEDCL, LivingWellUganda visits three rural feeders to see how tariffs, outages and last-mile connections have shifted.
By Grace Adokorach..Kampala. Mubende. Lira..6 min read
Kampala. Mubende. Lira.. 8 October 2025.
MixedEnergy & Infrastructure
The Umeme concession ended on 31 March 2025 and Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL) took over the national distribution network the following day. Six months on, the political story has settled, and the operational one is only starting.
Tariffs held, but reliability is uneven
The Electricity Regulatory Authority left end-user tariffs broadly unchanged for the first two quarterly reviews under UEDCL, absorbing transition costs at the wholesale level. In Kampala and Wakiso the change has been almost invisible to households. On rural feeders in Mubende and Lira the picture is more mixed: crews are still being reorganised, and callout times for faults on 33kV lines have lengthened in some sub-counties.
Last-mile connections are the real test
The bigger question is whether UEDCL can keep the Electricity Connections Policy moving. Under Umeme the subsidised connection scheme had slowed to a trickle. District engineers we spoke to want a published, monthly connections dashboard from the new operator so households and small businesses can plan.
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Regulatory continuity, or a quiet reset
The Electricity Regulatory Authority has said the handover was designed to be tariff-neutral in the short term exactly to avoid the political disruption of a visible price change during a sensitive transition, but that neutrality has been achieved partly by deferring transition costs to future wholesale tariff reviews, according to sector analysts who have examined ERA's published method notes.
UEDCL management has said publicly that rural connection targets under the Electricity Connections Policy remain a priority, but district engineers interviewed by LivingWellUganda in Mubende and Lira describe a utility still reorganising its regional crews inherited from Umeme, a process they expect to take longer than the six months so far elapsed.
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We are told the policy has not changed. What has changed is who answers the phone when a transformer blows.
District engineer, Mubende
Analysts will be watching UEDCL's first full-year connections report, due in early 2026, as the clearest test of whether the utility can sustain the rural rollout pace it inherited, or whether the transition costs quietly deferred at the tariff level begin to show up instead as slower service on the ground.
Evidence & documents
Every claim above is checked against the records below. Open each one to see where it comes from.
01Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL)▾
Grace Adokorach covers energy access in northern Uganda, from mini-grids and solar home systems to cooking fuel, and she follows the national distribution and tariff changes that reach those same households.
