Uganda: How Power Cuts Affect the National Mood

Uganda is in the grip of the most serious energy crisis since independence and many years before that. The crisis has now come down to the street level and we see it daily, everywhere.

You might have noticed a few places around Kampala, checked into a supermarket, observed the mood on the street. Weekdays are starting to feel like Saturdays. Commercial banks in Kampala are reporting lower deposits than usual. The queues in the largest supermarkets are not the crowds they once were.

The nation is downsizing. The days of cautious spending are here with us. The happy days are over. The next five years, 2006-2011 are going to be grim years for the vast majority of Ugandans and frustrating for the minority. But they will not be the happy-go-lucky years of the late 1990s when every weekend seemed to see the launch of a new radio station, a fashion boutique, a shopping mall, a new coffee place, etc.

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