Kampala

Uganda stands to reap $70 million or Shs119 billion annually when the country begins exporting 30 megawatts of electricity to the DRC as planned.
  
President Yoweri Museveni and his Congolese counterpart, Joseph Kabila during a meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Sunday agreed to share electricity.
 
It is expected that the European Union and other donors will finance the inter-state electricity connection project to northeastern DRC.
  
Mr Simon D’Ujanga, Uganda’s state minister for Energy, said yesterday that laying the power infrastructure from the western Kasese district through Mpondwe border post to Congolese towns of Beni and Butembo is estimated to cost $60 million.
 
The Head of EU delegation, Vincent de Vischer,  said  yesterday that they had not received any formal funding proposal for the planned cross-frontier power extension.
  
Asked how Uganda, currently reeling with electricity shortage for domestic consumers could ironically take power across the border, Mr D’Ujanga said the electricity crisis is “temporary” and everything will stabilise once Bujagali hydro dam, now under construction, and the planned Karuma power station are completed.
 
“Our teams have started surveys of the power line,” the minister said. At the Dar es Salaam summit hosted by Tanzanian president/AU chairman, Jakaya Kikwete, the Ugandan and Congolese presidents reportedly expressed optimism with the significant progress made in implementation of the September  8, 2007 Ngurdoto agreement.
 
“They (President Museveni and Kabila) agreed that as the border remarking takes place, the status quo should be maintained along the common border,” a communique released on Monday said.
  
Officials of DRC’s Aru border territory and Uganda Arua township are sparring over a borderline dispute  that flared early this month when DRC military established a garrison inside a disputed no-man’s land near Vurra border post. Both Uganda and the DRC agreed to provide the logistics.