National, News

Manufacturers urge gov’t to address high energy costs

BY Yiep Joseph

 

Association of South Sudan Manufacturers (ASSM) has raised concerns over the soaring costs of fuel and electricity, which are impacting the country’s manufacturing sector.

Adam Kubanja, the Chairperson of ASSM, said that the high costs are driving up production expenses for local manufacturers. As a result, many are forced to increase the prices of their products to remain competitive, making them less affordable for South Sudanese consumers.

He appealed to the South Sudanese government to ensure the provision of sustainable and cheap energy to encourage and promote local production.

“We have been appealing to relative government institutions concerned with energy; there is a need for the government to come up with good, sustainable, affordable energy that will enable the private sector to thrive,” he said.

He added that the prices of the fuel have continued to hike since it is imported from neighbouring Kenya.
“Fuel is being imported from Kenya. The rate at which they consume energy to get that end product, if you calculate it cumulated with the cost of the production, is what brings that pricing to be high,” he added.
On his part, Joseph Africano Bartel, undersecretary at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, expressed that prices continue to increase due to the cost of production.

“We have known that water prices have been increasing not because of the levy but because of the cost of operation based on the depreciation of our currency to the dollar while everything is being imported,” he said.
He acknowledged some of the unnecessary increase of some prices, particularly the water prices, and cautioned the public to report to the manufacturer’s association any abnormal prices on clean drinking water.

This month Deputy Governor of Central Equatoria State, Paulino Lukudu Obede, criticized Juba Electricity Distribution Company (JEDCO) for failing to deliver on its promises of reliable and affordable electricity to the citizens of Juba.

Lukudu made the remarks during the launch of the $53 million Assist Power Project, co-funded by the World Bank and the Government of Japan, which aims to connect over 50,000 households in Yei and Juba, as well as 90 healthcare facilities and other public institutions across the country.

The Deputy Governor stated that despite allocating land for free to JEDCO, the company has failed to light major streets within the city and charged power consumers a high amount of money.

“Though the state government cooperated with the national government to give land free of charge to JEDCO, this project has not captured the interest of our people. It started with the high tariffs, and now our people cannot afford to buy a single electricity this expensive; there are other things related to the beautification of the city, consumers being in private offices or government institutions are no longer using this electricity despite the fact that they have the meter in their offices because it is extremely expensive,” stated Lokudu.

He stated that as part of the social corporate responsibility, JEDCO was supposed to light 5,000 security electric and traffic lights within Juba City and beautify major roundabouts within the city under the beautification component, and since then JEDCO has only managed to connect 1,000 street lights out of the 5,000.

Lokudu further added that the electricity power supplier has gone ahead charging an extra $3 to the Central Equatorial State public institution.

“The beautification and modernization of the city work with electricity, but JEDCO has gone ahead even asking the state government to pay for electricity, while we are aware that there is $3 taken from everybody buying electricity for the street lights. How can our people pay for the streetlights when no streetlights are working in Juba? We have the streetlights, but they are not lighting the streetlights. 4,000 of them are not working while we pay for these street lights,” he added.

Leave a Comment