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Isimba dam gets new engineers
Kampala, Uganda | JULIUS BUSINGE | The Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited (UEGCL) has announced a new Owner’s Engineer (OE) for the 183MW hydropower dam located in Kayunga district.
The new OE, which is taking over from Energy Infratech PvT Limited (EIPL), is Artelia EAU & Environment (from France) in association with KKATT Consult Limited (a Ugandan firm).
EIPL’s contract expired in September 2017 and was not renewed due to underperformance related to poor workmanship, concrete defects, quality assurance and control issues.
EIPL is the current OE at the 600MW Karuma hydropower dam located in Kiryandongo district, which is to be commissioned in December 2018.
Apart from making sure that work is on schedule and on budget, Owner’s Engineers ensure that the complexitiy of the project is mastered and the risk in investment reduced.
Harrison Mutikanga, the executive director of UEGCL said at a press conference in Kampala today that the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development is in charge of the contract of EIPL for Karuma.
He referred journalists to the ministry officials to answer any contractual issues for Karuma.
However, for Isimba, he said, they did due diligence on the new OE and are confident they will do a good job.
“We believe the new OE will go a long way to help us make sure that going forward the ongoing site works are properly supervised so that come August 2018 we have a fit-for-purpose facility,” Mutikanga said.
The new OE has done similar work in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Sudan and in other regions across the world.
Mutikanga said having a Ugandan company partnering with a foreign company – in this case -would promote government’s efforts of promoting local content provisions in high profile development projects.
He said the money involved in this contract is US$4million (Approx. Shs14bn).
