Uganda's power crisis is set to worsen if the current weather conditions in the east African country prevail for the next four months, state-owned New Vision reported on Thursday.

A ministry of energy policy statement presented to the parliament revealed that power generation at Nalubale and Kiira Dams may drop further to between 80-90 MW.

"The country is faced with an acute power supply shortage and output might reduce to 80-90 MW in the next four months, depending on the weather conditions," the statement said in part.

Out of the 300 MW from the two-hydro-power plants, only 135 MW is being generated due to drought. The country is now short of 250 MW of power supply.

The likely deepening crisis may continue to set back the country's booming economy as the current load shedding has affected industries and commerce and drown complaints from the private sector.

Ministry of Finance statistics indicated that the country's GDP, which was expected to grow by 6 percent to 6.5 percent, may now grow by 4 percent as a result of the shortage.

Meanwhile the Ministry of Energy made short, medium and long term plans to reduce power losses in the distribution network, implement energy efficiency and procure additional thermal generation capacity to address the current electricity supply deficit.

It said that the developer of a new dam, the Bujagali hydro- electric power project, whose construction is expected to begin next February, was finalizing the bidding process for the dam and power house engineering.

The government had also started negotiations with the developers of the 200 MW Karuma Hydro-electric power project, expected to begin construction in September 2007, on a private- public partnership basis.

Source: Xinhua