The Rural Electrification Authority (REA) says 17 out of the 32 grid extension projects which started in 2018 have been completed.
Authority Corporate Affairs Manager Justin Mukosa told Money FM News in an interview that the remaining 15 are at different levels of implementation, and hopes they will be completed by the end of this year.
Mr. Mukosa disclosed that one of the biggest projects in Lupososhi District in Northern Province which is being constructed at a cost of about K7.6 million has not been completed yet as it is only 65 percent done.
“Right now we are in Lupososhi where one of the biggest projects which we started at a cost of K7.6 million has not been completed up to date, it’s about 65 percent done because of several challenges including Covid-19.”
“We are hoping that by the end of this year, we could finish the other 15 that are remaining. Our projects are long term because most of them take an average of 30 to 40 weeks,” Mr. Mukosa said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Mukosa stated that the Authority did not start any new grid extension projects in 2019 and 2020 because it is still finalizing the 2018 tasks.
Mr. Mukosa said this is because in 2018, the authority had a budget line of about K250 million through the national budget but that the figure reduced to K109 million Kwacha in 2019, while the budget that was given to the Authority in 2020 by government is K169 million.
“There are some grid extension projects that we started in 2018, and they were 32. We started these 32 projects because we had a budget line of about K250 million, that is the money that is appropriated by government.”
“In 2018 itself, not all that money came through, so we had to adjust our implementation of the projects because in 2019, the budget came down to K169 million. So that meant that we couldn’t start any new grid extension projects in 2018 because we had to finish off those 32 grid extension projects that we started in 2018,” he stated.