National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) has informed Parliament that the Corporation’s operations to extend water across Uganda are being jeopardized by the growing unpaid water arrears by various Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
MDAs currently owe NWSC UGX116Bn despite earlier promises to have these outstanding arrears cleared.
The concern was raised by Eng. Alex Gisagara, Senior Advisor Engineering Services at NWSC while appearing before Parliament’s Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, during a meeting held to get an update on the growing water arrears within Government agencies.
Gisagara said, “We started the journey with UGX81.4Bn in 2023/24, today we are talking about UGX116Bn and has just increased by 10% from 2024/25. The current payment so far received is only UGX16Bn out of the UGX81.4Bn, now if you put on now the increase for the period, the situation is getting very worse and very bad.”
His remarks were in response to inquiries made by Herbert Ariko, Chairperson, Parliament’s Committee on Natural Resources who indicated that the probe into the growing water arrears followed a petition filed by NWSC in January 2025 to Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among seeking parliamentary intervention into the growing unpaid water bills in Government.
“NWSC was struggling, largely because government had become the principal debtor to National Water, because most of our ministries, agencies and departments were the ones that were not paying their water bills. Over a time, in a period of about five years, the arrears had accumulated to UGX105Billion. National Water had gotten to a point where it could not pay suppliers of pipe, pay suppliers of materials, pay contractors that had offered services to improve the infrastructure. Many of them had either chosen to go to court and institute proceedings against National Water, or had terminated supplies to National Water and sewage corporation,” noted Ariko.
Eng. Gisagara informed the Committee that following the quarterly releases by the Ministry of Finance a month back in which some agencies were allocated funds to clear their water arrears, only UGX962.3Million has been paid, out of the UGX116Bn outstanding water arrears.
“Some hospitals have already complied; Naguru Hospital has paid UGX79.8Million, Hoima Referral Hospital has been owing UGX137.6Million, they have paid UGX137.6Million, it’s fully paid. Then you have Arua, UGX187.6million, they have also paid ugx187.6million, paid. Then Fort Portal Regional Referral Hospital, that is UGX479.7Million, they have already paid UGX479.7Million, fully paid,” he said.
Samuel Emiku, Under Secretary, Uganda Prisons Services admitted that although Prisons has been among the culprits accumulating unpaid water bills, the agency was able to clear its arrears on 7th November 2025.
He explained, “The water budget for Uganda prisons was increased by the Minister of Finance this financial year from UGX7.05 billion, which we used to get, and this financial year of 2024-25, the budget now stands at UGX15.694Bn, and that was an effort to address the accumulation of areas. All the outstanding areas of UGX18.272Bn were provided for by the Minister of Finance. This was released in the second quarter, which we are currently on, and on 7th November 2025, we paid all the money that was released to National Water.”
