BUJUMBURA August 11th (ABP) – “REGIDESO has started a review of its electricity network to provide the people with quality service”, announced its Director General (DG), Major Jean Albert Manigomba.
It was during a field visit he made last week in the neighborhood of Gahahe where REGIDESO staff were working on renewing the electricity network connection installations.
Mr. Manigomba informed that REGIDESO started that review by neighborhoods in the north of Bujumbura when power cuts were noticed, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., following the saturation of its electricity network. In addition, he added, REGIDESO noted that voltage drops on its transformers and repetitive power cuts could damage its equipment and also that of the beneficiary population. That is how REGIDESO decided to stop the delivery of electricity meters in the northern neighborhoods of the city of Bujumbura to correct that situation and carry out the necessary revisions, continued Mr. Manigomba.
At a time when the city of Bujumbura is expanding, REGIDESO has not followed the movement to adjust its electrical installations, said the CEO of that company, specifying that this caused voltage drops because, he said, they did not follow the regulations for the electrical connection within 1 km of a transformer, which results in overloads on the transformers.
It is currently necessary to install new transformers on the electricity network in order to correct the overloads on existing transformers and allow connection according to standards, indicated the DG of REGIDESO.
Regarding the underground electricity installations on which infrastructure has been built, he explained that REGIDESO will collaborate with the local administrative officials to make the corrections.
He informed that the overhauls of the electrical installations in the northern neighborhoods of the city of Bujumbura, namely Gahahe, Carama, Gatunguru rural and Ku Winterekwa will be closed with this week. The people of that locality will thus have the right to electrical connections, he said. The same work will continue in the southern districts of the economic capital where the revisions are scheduled to be closed at the end of September, according to the DG of REGIDESO, who indicated that the whole country will be affected by these revisions. Those ones will be operated by REGIDESO on its electrical network to serve its customers well, whether for the replacement of defective equipment and the extension of its network.