Uganda’s Electricity Regulatory Authority [ERA] has once again been ranked the best electricity regulator on the African continent.
This is the fourth time running the country is thumping other countries in this field. Uganda left 43 other countries drawn across the continent nursing serious misery after it performed exceptionally to scoop this top award.
Since 2018, the African Development Bank [AfDB] has been releasing the rankings of electricity regulators in Africa under the energy regulatory index. The bank considers different parameters like governance, independence, implementation of regulations, economic regulation which includes tariff setting and frameworks, licensing framework sub-indicators and technical regulation.
We can authoritatively report that in all those parameters, Uganda was the only country that scored above 80%. The country scored 82% and topped all the parameters that were used in the assessment.
“This is no mean achievement. It underscores the reason why several regulatory agencies within Africa keep coming to us to benchmark” Julius Wandera, ERA’s Director for Corporate and Consumer affairs told The Inspector in an interview.
Wandera attributed the performance to some of the systems they have put in place like tariff methodology.
Wale Shonibare, AfDB’s director for energy financial solutions, policy and regulation was all smiles towards Uganda after the country exhibited a high degree of excellence in her performance.
“Uganda topping the rankings consecutively for four years comes as no surprise to many, as the regulator spends significant time on consultation and analysis, including regulatory impact assessments of key interventions and follow-through to ensure full implementation” he said.
A third of countries surveyed indicated they lack methodologies to determine tariffs; another 40% rely on tariff methodologies that do not include key attributes such as automatic tariff adjustment and tariff indexation mechanisms and schedules for major tariff reviews.
The report also highlighted regulatory independence as one sub-indicator where African countries have room to improve. To foster the independence of regulators across Africa, AfDB recommended that the boards of directors and executives to be recruited through well-established and well-known procedures.
“To remove any government interference in the activities of the regulatory authority, it is recommended that governments modify any provisions in the regulatory laws that allow the executives to override or change the regulators’ decisions,” the report said.
