More Ugandans now have access to clean safe water following a period of aggressive expansion by National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) working with Government of Uganda and Ministry of Water and Environment.
Geographical coverage has expanded from 36 to 253 towns and urban growth centers in the last 5 years serving up to 10 million people.
NWSC was named among the best performing government enterprises for the year 2017/2018. According to the Auditor General in the Financial Year 2017/2019, NWSC was the third best performing state Corporation coming after Bank of Uganda and National Social Security Fund which came first and second respectively.
NWSC is a Public Corporation wholly owned by the Government of Uganda. The Corporation’s mandate is to provide water and sewerage services in urban areas on commercial and financially viable basis.
For the period under review (2017/18) NWSC made a profit of Shs51.2b after taxes compared to Shs26.7b in the financial year 2016/2017.
According to the Managing Director NWSC Dr. Eng Silver Mugisha, the real story is in the additional number of Ugandans who now have access to safe clean drinking water. “At NWSC we don’t think in terms of profit. We think in terms of surpluses available to us to extend services to unserved Ugandans. The surpluses that we make from operational efficiency and innovative management practices are ploughed back into network expansion to serve more Ugandans. So for us the surplus means we have increased our capacity to serve more Ugandans. We measure ourselves by how many more people we serve.”
The Corporation’s strategic focus is to ensure water for all, while promoting innovations that will contribute to the socio–economic growth and transformation of Uganda while conserving the environment.
The Corporation is working to achieve this through accelerated sustainable growth and service reliability. This is in line with the overarching Government Policy of universal coverage as enshrined in the Vision 2040, National Development Plan (NDP II), Government (NRM) Manifesto, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 6).
Within the context of NWSC Operations, the NRM Government Manifesto Commitments, Strategic Guidelines and Directives broadly entail the following:
Over the past four years of the Manifesto implementation, NWSC has implemented a number of Government of Uganda undertakings towards the achievement of the above commitments and directives. These include:
Within this context, NWSC implemented the following undertakings aligned to the Government strategic agenda:
Package 1 & 3 also known as the Namasuba Project has been completed and was commissioned by H.E the President of Uganda in 2016. For Package 4B, the project site has been cleared and fenced, 58 Km of pipeline secured and handed over to the Contractor (8Km laid), and technical evaluations completed for Package 2B.
The project is near completion, overall project progress is estimated at 98%.
In Arua and Bushenyi, the projects are complete and systems are operational. In Gulu, the Karuma Intake civil works and rehabilitation of the water treatment plant are ongoing, and rehabilitation of the sewerage ponds is 80% complete.
The Uganda Investment Authority has established 11 industrial parks across the various regions in Uganda. The development of these industrial parks is at different levels, however NWSC is working closely with UIA to ensure development of reliable water supply systems that can foster industrial growth. Currently, NWSC has extended water services to the following industrial parks and some of the institutions have been connected to the NWSC Water Supply system.
Karamoja Industrial and Business Park is not connected to the NWSC network because it is still under development. However, NWSC will continue working closely with UIA to ensure piped water supply systems are established when access roads within the Park and other establishments are developed.
On the other hand, all Parks except Mbale Industrial Park fall outside the NWSC sewerage service area and as such, are not connected to the NWSC Sewerage system. The NWSC, wastewater treatment facilities are designed to receive municipal waste, and therefore connection of industrial waste cannot be done. The respective industries are required to carry out wastewater pre-treatment by law, before disposal.
Environmental protection is crucial to the sustainability of the Corporation’s business given the impact it poses on water sources. The Corporation undertook various environmental youth programmes, which included:
Culminating from the above undertakings, the Corporation has registered remarkable performance improvement and growth in a number of its key performance indicators as highlighted in the table below:
Summary of NWSC Performance for the Period 2016-2019
|
Key Performance Indicator |
Actual Performance |
Projection |
Annual Target 2020/21 |
% Achiev’t |
||
|
|
2015/ 2016 |
2016/ 2017 |
2017/ 2018 |
2018/ 2019 |
|
|
|
Water Services |
||||||
|
Number of Towns (Nos.) |
170 |
218 |
236 |
253 |
300 |
84% |
|
Water Service Coverage (%) |
78 |
78 |
84 |
84 |
100 |
84% |
|
Water Production (million m3 / Year) |
106 |
121 |
126 |
134 |
149 |
90% |
|
Water supply (Million m3/ Year) |
103 |
116 |
120 |
127 |
146 |
87% |
|
Water Sales (Million m3/ Year) |
74 |
80 |
83 |
89 |
106 |
84% |
|
Non-Revenue Water (%) |
28 |
31 |
31 |
30 |
28 |
93% |
|
New Water Connections (Nos. / Year) |
38,836 |
40,712 |
50,341 |
63,385 |
68,042 |
93% |
|
Total Water Connections (Nos.) |
472,193 |
524,657 |
587,863 |
653,196 |
770,340 |
85% |
|
New Public Stand posts (Nos. / Year) |
1,129 |
1,164 |
3,342 |
3,388 |
6,000 |
56% |
|
New water mains extensions (Km/ Year) |
888 |
911 |
2,021 |
2,060 |
2,500 |
82% |
|
Sewerage Services |
||||||
|
Sewerage Service coverage (%) |
6 |
6 |
21 |
21 |
30 |
70% |
|
New Sewer Connection (Nos. / Year) |
388 |
316 |
272 |
407 |
520 |
78% |
|
New Sewer extensions (Km/ Year) |
19 |
22 |
24 |
32 |
30 |
107% |
|
Financial Performance |
||||||
|
Billing (Billion) – (Ushs. / Year) -VAT Inc. |
292 |
347 |
390 |
433 |
406 |
107% |
|
Collections (Billion) – (Ushs. / Year) – VAT Inc. |
284 |
323 |
385 |
442 |
418 |
106% |
|
Collection Efficiency (%) |
97 |
93 |
99 |
102 |
103 |
99% |
|
Debt Age in months |
3 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
100% |
|
Staff Productivity (Nos.) |
6 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
100% |
The improvement in performance is a combined effort of all Stakeholders especially the Government that has created an enabling environment for the Corporation to carry out its activities. NWSC appreciates the support rendered to and we commit to the implementation of the programmes enshrined in the various overarching strategic plans. We continue to strive for water for all, by a delighted workforce for a delighted customer.
