BY ANDREW COHEN AMVESI
ARUA. There is growing panic at the West Nile Rural Electrification Company Limited (WENRECO) offices in Arua following the successful hand over of a petition seeking to kick the company and Electromaxx out of West Nile region, to the Speaker of Parliament.
Hon. Annet Anita Among received the petition from a team from West Nile led by Mercy Grace Munduru at Parliament on Thursday morning.
In the petition, the team which is comprised of aggrieved locals and Members of Parliament (MPs) want the government to cancel the contract of WENRECO and Electromaxx for failing to provide stable and reliable power, and instead connect the region to the national grid.
After receiving the petition, the Speaker took to her twitter handle and tweeted; “This afternoon I received a petition from a group of Citizens from West Nile on the power outages in the region. On Tuesday I will meet the Minister in charge of energy and the directors of Electromaxx, WENRECO, Nyagak, and the petitioners to get to the root cause of the issue.”
Similarly, Munduru also confirmed the development and thanked the power consumers in the region for their input in the petition.
“Dear Members, we want to thank you all for your input into the petition. We also thank our Members of Parliament for joining us on this fight. As I shared when we started this group, advocacy is a very long journey and everybody is important and we shouldn’t water down anybody’s effort even those who we may not fully agree with,” Munduru posted on WENRECO MUST GO! WhatsApp group shortly after the meeting with the Speaker.
“Seven MPs joined us on this call and some sent their apologies for their inability to be here. This is a good thing and testament that we are now on the same page. Given the guidance from the Speaker, we have agreed that we shall have a copy team from both sides strengthen the petition further. A formal statement will be shared in the course of the day. Let us keep focused!” Munduru advised.
Jimmy Madira, a lawyer and also a resident of Arua said Munduru Mercy Grace has done the un unimaginable where the mighty have failed.
“I also thank Hon. Feta Geoffrey for the great effort to keep the fire alive where all hope seems to have been lost. When power comes to West Nile you will be remembered among those who fought a great fight above self for the good of the West Nile Community,” Madira said
“We shall not rest until West Nile is connected to the National Grid. We are also planning other peaceful interventions. Let’s keep the fire burning,” Madira stressed.
Of late, cases of power outages have worsened in the region as WENRECO officials continue attributing the problem to lack of fuel to run Electromaxx generators.
But some insiders at WENRECO are blaming the problem on the decision taken by the management to disable the automated switch at the Thermal plant in Ewuata and the sacking of four top senior company engineers without replacement.
The sacking of the senior engineers one month ago, according to our sources within WENRECO, has greatly affected the operations of the company and as a result, the control in switching and maintenance has become a problem following the massive exit of the technical staff.
 offices in Arua following the successful hand over..){kind=link}
This is has been cry of West Nile residents since early 2000s and finally it has reached to the highest level where West Nile people should not not denied of the national cake..If power can reach out to Rwanda and Kenya from Uganda! Why us in West Nile not connected to the national power grid.
I love this Enthusiasm!
Let them Go, enough of the Exploitation and arrogance. I remember in 2012 when all my electrical appliances where bunt because of their Neglence and they refused to compantiate us yet the damage affected consumers in a distance of about 500meters from She’ll to Nsambia Mosque.