The embattled electricity service provider UMEME has once again come under criticism for continuing to estimate bills for power consumed its customers.

Revelations by UMEME officials as well as findings of a 2011 survey by the sector regulator the Electricity Regulatory Agency (ERA) on the distribution system, losses and collection rates show that a significant number of consumers still continue to get estimated bills.

Legislators and energy experts say that UMEME's continued estimation of bills is a lack of seriousness to stick by the commitments it made to revamp the distribution sector.

Robert Kisubi, an official from UMEME argued however that the company still estimates bills because of issues like customers locking their premises.

Although UMEME says that it has started to implement its new customer care and billing system (NCBS) to perform all the billing and customer care operations, the ERA report says the system is doing little to improve things.

The Open Integrated Customer Care System (OICS), ?Meter Management System (MMS) and ?Incident Management System (IMS) are some of the aspects of the new system.

The report shows for example that meter readers still write meter readings with a pen and enter the data into the computers, which creates room for errors.

"If the online billing system is used and meter readings of those customers whose current reading is lower than the previous month's reading, in such cases, the data operator either transfers it back to the meter reader or some times applies his/her own judgment," says the report.

It has further been observed that a significant number of customers generally receive their bills after the due date and ironically, there are some cases where the electricity service is cut without customers even receiving bills.

Of recent, UMEME has come under severe criticism from legislators sitting on the energy committee who accused the company of fleecing taxpayers by claiming obscene amounts of money from government to compensate for energy losses.

The MPs accused UMEME of spending money on office equipment and cars instead of investing it in transformers, substations and poles to improve the distribution system.

"In financial year 2011-2012 alone, government budgeted Ushs 417 billion on account of subsidies to the electricity sector," said Muloni recently. This is despite the fact that ERA has allowed an increase in power tariffs by as much as 40 percent.