National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) is grappling with water bill arrears to a tune of Shs23bn after the water entity decided not to disconnect customers during COVID-19 lockdown.
George Okol, Director Commercial and Customer Services at NWSC made the revelation today while addressing the press bout NWSC’s new amnesty program at the International Resources Center in Bugolobi-Kampala.
Okol said that following President Museveni’s directive not to disconnect customers during the pandemic, the Corporation has been left to grapple with arrears to a tune of Shs23bn although the new program is intended to bring on board the customers that were disconnected before the pandemic.
Okol explained that the arrears run from March 2020 to date.
“During COVID-19 time, the outstanding arrears are close to about Shs23Bn. During COVID-19, most of our customers faced the challenge of paying their bills, they continued consuming and during that time, the President gave guidance that there shouldn’t be disconnection so we continued to offer service to customers irrespective of whether they paid or not,” Okol said.
He added that the new campaign; Customer Re-Connect Program will focus on visiting and wooing back all accounts that have been turned off across all business areas of the corporation and the initiative will be implemented until July 2021 and will be great opportunity for customers around Kampala and the rest of Uganda to get back to our water supply grid.
“About 13% of our customers are disconnected translating to about 100,000 and we are getting all customers who are disconnected and whatever challenge they have we are going to listen so we come up with a win-win situation. During the re-engagement process, flexible repayment options for any outstanding arrears will be discussed with emphasis on getting back customers onto supply,” said Okol.
According to NWSC, the amnesty period will entail waiving off re-connection fees and meter cost from customers willing to commit to come back on supply if they pay for materials for the re-connection, clear negotiated arrears of sign an Arrears Payment Agreement, make deposit towards the future billing of at least one month and payment of administrative fee of Shs5000 per account.
Mahmood Lutaaya, General Manager Kampala Water gave an update on the construction of the Katosi Water Treatment Plant assuring residents in Sonde, Namugongo, Kira, Kasangati, Gayaza among other areas that the water scarcity nightmare they have been grappling with for the past three years will soon end upon completion of testing of the machinery in May 2021.
He said that these residents will witness an end to their suffering with the starting of testing the different units of the Katosi treatment plant and this testing should take around one month.
“In the first week of April, we expect water to start coming into the system. So we expect in the first week of May, water to start trickling into the customers’ homes, so customers who have been having supply shortages, we are very sure that the remaining challenges will be sorted,” said Lutaaya.
He added that going forward, the Corporation is walking back on policy of disconnections, “We realize that we actually we don’t need to disconnect our customers in order to generate revenue. As Kampala Water, we have committed to not disconnect customers but rather reconnect customers,” said Lutaaya.
The Corporation is also set to reconnect all public standing pipes that were disconnected after being mismanaged by the former operators.
