NWSC Managing Director, Eng. Silver Mugisha
National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) has lashed out at individuals calling for free supply of water, saying such calls are intended to benefit the rich while denying the poor people access to clean water.
The revelation was made by NWSC Managing Director, Eng. Silver Mugisha during the institution’s tour by new Water Minister, Aisha Ssekindi.
“Resources are being taken to those people who don’t have water. That’s why it is ideological dis-orientation for people to advocate for free water by NWSC,” Mugisha said, adding: “When you advocate for free water, you don’t remove the fact that we still have to pay for chemicals, power, staff, pipes, therefore if you say we should give free water, either you are saying we should close or somebody should pay the bill.”
He added that the Covid pandemic and recent lockdown has affected revenue collections, noting that people shouldn’t be advocating for free water.
“And if you say that somebody should pay the bill, it can’t be anybody else apart from Government. So, if you say all Ugandans should pay for NWSC bill, you are in other words saying the poor people should pay for the rich people,” Mugisha added.
Minister Ssekindi was first taken through a tour around the new water sewerage treatment plant and NWSC revealed that the plant has started working.
The Minister however called on the Corporation to deal with the issue of empty taps and pipes set up, saying it is partly the reason NRM lost elections in Buganda region.
In response, Mugisha acknowledged there are some empty pipes and taps and said that the institution has taken a decision to finalize setting up the current projects before embarking on new infrastructure.
The NWSC Management revealed the achievements they have registered since 1990, with Mugisha revealing that in 1990 NWSC was operating in 5towns, now they are in 258 towns. In the same period, NWSC was serving 500,000 people now the customers have grown to over 15million people. The network coverage has grown from 300Km to now 20,000Kms and the number of connections has grown from 20,000 to 800,000.
The Corporation has also registered growth in revenue from USD4M in 1990 to USD130M approximately Shs458.954Bn annually.
According to NWSC, customers interested in having prepaid meters will have to dig deeper into their pockets and buy their own prepaid meters, because they are costly and priority is on extending water to all customers.
“We are going to launch policy on prepaid meters and it will be on need basis in that way we shall not be diverted from other projects. At night people keep jerrycans and pierce the pipe to fetch water. It is a problem we have our water being stolen and the problem is in Kampala,” said Mugisha.
