NWSC lays pipes under roads to avoid pay

NWSC staff lay a pipe on Kaya Road in Bunga, a Kampala suburb, last Friday. PHOTO BY STEPHEN OTAGE

Kampala. The National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) has resorted to digging up public roads in Makindye Division to lay huge water pipes connecting to the new reservoir at Namasuba hill to avoid a huge compensation bill.
Mr Johnson Amayo, the NWSC deputy managing director in charge of technical services, told journalists last Friday that encroachers on road reserves where the pipes are supposed to be laid, had demanded a lot of money that would make the project more expensive.
“The money they are asking for is more than the cost of the pipes. With proper physical planning, utility services are provided on road reserves but people have built high end properties and after doing an economic analysis, we found that we cannot afford,” Mr Amayo told journalists during the tour of the Namasuba transmission and storage works.
When contacted, Mr Peter Kauju, the KCCA publicist, said the city authority encourages people who dig up road sections to use modern technology so that they don’t destroy the road.
“We encourage them to create ducts so that all cables and pipes to be laid underground, pass through this duct,” he said.
The Namasuba reservoir will supply water to the greater Kampala Metropolitan area.