ARUSHA, July 13: The World Bank is preparing funding for Tanzania and Uganda to help the east African countries cope with a power crisis triggered by a three-year drought, bank officials said on Thursday.

They were responding to an appeal for help from Juma Volter Mwapachu -- secretary-general of the East African Community, which groups Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya -- during a meeting with visiting World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.

Tanzania and Uganda have been worst hit by the power crisis and are currently enforcing rolling blackouts that are hurting their economies and stretching financial resources.

“In the short term we need a quick intervention,” Mwapachu told Wolfowitz. He said the EAC was working on developing an east African power grid in which all three countries could share resources and storage capacity.

Mark Tomlinson, the World Bank's country director for regional integration, said power shortages facing the governments over the next few years would hurt the region's competitiveness unless the situation was addressed.

An estimated $1.3 billion in new investment for additional power generation and an extra $1 billion for transmission would be needed in the EAC region over the next five years, he said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the meeting, bank officials said they were preparing a loan of around $100m for thermal power generation in Uganda. —Reuters