Hundreds of customers will remain in the dark as power distributor Umeme Ltd has suspended free electricity connections under the electricity connections policy (ECP) over lack of funds.

A June 15 letter by Umeme managing director Selestiono Babungi indicates that the power distributor is demanding payment of $25m (Shs93.8b) from Rural Electrification Agency (REA) for completed connections.

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Government in 2018 launched the 10-year ECP stretching to 2027, with REA as the implementing agency through power distributors Umeme and Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Ltd, among others.

This has been pending for more than 184 days contrary to our implementation agreement which stipulates that payment to the implementing agency should be made within 90 days from connection date," the letter adds.

Umeme also claims that the implementation framework agreement between itself and REA expired yet more than 163,415 customer applications were pending in May.