Imagine you have a house in dire need of repair – it is in
sore need of a paint job, the doors are hanging off the hinges, you have
plywood and cardboard in some window panes, tiles are cracked, missing or
sliding off the roof every so often. You don’t have the funds to repair and you
daren’t sell your children’s inheritance.
You get a willing tenant and outline your demands.
You expect to rent, you agree that some repairs are required
and you also agree a breach of contract clause, which among other thing says
you will refund your tenant the cost of the renovations and expected future income
he may have derived from the property according to an agreed formula.
So you shake on the deal and with the 12 months, say
$12,000, down payment you are off.
Your tenant goes in and finds that a major overhaul is
required. You agree on the new cost of repairs say $50,000 compared to the
original $25,000.
So the tenant renovates the property and rents out the house
at $5,000 a month or $60,000 a year.
Your spouse hears of this and starts muttering under his
breath how you have been ripped off and how you don’t have business acumen.
Your darling husband does not stop at that but starts actively
pushing for a return of the house barely a year into the contract.
The tenant while inconvenienced, agrees and computes the cost
you will have to refund – the cost of renovation, plus a percentage of
anticipated income into the future, less the rent he has already paid you. It
comes up to almost the value of the property.
"When your husband hears of the terms of termination he calls, your tenant a day light robber, you the stupidest spouse in Singapore, swears he will nullify the contract and throw your tenant out on his behind with not a penny more...
But what hardens his resolve even more is the sneaking
suspicion he holds that you are actually earning more from the house than you
are declaring and “wasting” it on dresses, handbags and ghastly pedicures.
He even threatens you with divorce, as well as acquiring the
said property as a settlement.
Ridiculous! Preposterous! Outrageous!
This is exactly what the honourable members of parliament
seating on the adhoc committee on the performance of the electricity sub-sector
are proposing in suggesting that we cancel our contracts with power generator
Eskom, who manage Owen Falls Dam complex and Umeme, who are the distributors of
the power generated.
They blame Eskom, for not generating enough power and
therefore in breach of contract and yet during the period under question water
levels on Lake Victoria were low and their generating capacity was diminished.
Things have changed since with the entrance of Bujagali dam and several other
small hydro-power dams.
They blame Umeme for the persistent blackouts that were
happening at the time – never mind the above challenges Eskom faced, and also
charge that the $130m Umeme claims it has laid out on rehabilitating the distribution networks is over exaggerated.
In a nutshell like the aforementioned jealous hubby, shocked
at how much Umeme is making and wanting more, no, all the money, they are
suggesting that we throw out these companies and take back the generation and
distribution functions.
Failing to find any breach of contract by these companies
the MPs have called for a cancellation of the contracts all together arguing
they were badly negotiated in favour of the new concessionaires.
And for full measure are baying for the blood of this and
the other government official for the heck of it.
In 1997 then Uganda Electricity Board (UEB) boss Simon
D’Ujanga took a team of journalists around the company’s installations and
showed that at the then rate of uptake of power with no new power generation
capacity coming on line, a daily loadshedding schedule was imminent.
It was front page news the following day.
"The government owned UEB failed to run the growing network and meet generation demands, and now these MPs in their infinite wisdom are suggesting a return to government of a working system...
I have my suspicion that none of these MPs lived in Kampala
– after all it was only the capital city that had electricity, during those
horrendous days and therefore are not averse to throwing around their opinions
willy nilly.
On a more universal level this attempted reneging on
contracts is being watched keenly by anyone who wants to invest in this
country, including local investors. What’s the point of committing millions of
dollars or even shillings over 10-, 20- even 50-years when I know that a
schizophrenic government can wake up one morning and dispossess me of my
investment?
The same way you may never get another tenant in your new
house once your hubby has got rid of your old one.
"Honourable MPs, with your sh20m salaries, hundred million shilling four wheel drive guzzlers and billion shilling car park, you make us – the down trodden of the earth, wonder whether you are irredeemably stupid or that you have ulterior, self-serving motives that we are not privy to, that motivate your actions....
Tell us which is it? Because clearly you are not representing us.
