NWSC registers heavy profits
NWSC managing director Silver Mugisha. PHOTO BY STEPHEN OTAGE
Kampala- Armed with a Shs23b monthly income, National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) has said it is in consultations with the ministry of Water and Environment to start providing safe piped water to rural areas.
Speaking last week at a thanksgiving ceremony to celebrate the corporation’s achievements this year, Mr Chris Ebal, the corporation board chair, said with the massive expansion the corporation has achieved in the last three years, there is no reason why they should not take over the provision of piped water in rural areas. He said safe piped water will reduce the health bill that government is struggling with.
“When we started three years ago, people thought we were young people who could not move water from 23 towns and now when we meet the president, he asks us what is not in our mandate,” he said, adding that “We are discussing something to take water to the rural people much as it is not in our mandate. We should start giving them water because at the end of the day when there is clean water, the health bill will go down.”
Dr Silver Mugisha, the managing director, said: “In June last year, we were in 66 towns but today we are in 134 towns and the number is still increasing. Last year, we extended 470kms of pipes compared to 1448kms today and the 80kms that had become perennial.”
He added that the corporation has also managed to create 41,000 new water connections compared to 375 in June last year, which has raised its monthly revenue from Shs15b net in 2014, to Shs23b in 2015.
