By Silvia Nyambura
Umeme customers may end up paying more for electricity in the near future following the release of the Company’s half year financials. The electricity distributor registered a loss of Ushs 4.47 billion in the first half of 2015 compared to a profit of Ushs 38.27 billion in the same period last year. This performance is attributed to a surge in unrealized foreign exchange losses on borrowings from Ushs 7.6 billion in the first half of 2014 to Ushs 61.8 billion.
According to the company’s MD Selestino Babungi, Umeme operates under a US dollar concession with the local currency (Uganda Shilling) as its functional currency.
“We are confident we will recover the foreign currency losses over the life of the concession through the quarterly tariff adjustment mechanism,” he said in a press statement.
The statement further reveals profits after tax adjusted for unrealized foreign exchange losses increased by 25% to Ushs 57.4 billion in the first half of 2015 from Ushs 45.9 billion in the six months to June 2014. Revenue increased by 13.41% to Ushs 547.65 billion.
Assets rose by 15.47% to Ushs 1.4 trillion from Ushs 1.21 trillion at the end of the last financial year while shareholders’ equity fell by 11.52% to Ushs 277.58 billion.
Cost of Sales registered a marginal growth of 5.4% to Ushs 347.12 billion from Ushs 329.35 billion the same period last year. Repair and maintenance expenses were down 32.23% to Ushs 9.14 billion while administrative expenses appreciated by 35.58% to Ushs 82.16 billion.
Energy losses were down to 19.1% from 21.6% at the end of FY14 while a revenue collection rate of 100.4% from 96.6% was realized at the end of last year.
Customer numbers have grown by 16% to 713,756.
Umeme has so far made capital investments worth Ushs 103.2 billion this year.
