Unsung Heroes: A Glance at NWSC Outstanding Job of implementing Museveni’s promises behind curtains

KAMPALA, Uganda: President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa in his succeeding campaign manifestos has been setting an ambitious plan geared at taking clean and safe water around the country.

Whilst the Head of State is the one who has been making the pledge, the onus to implement the same falls squarely on National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC). But what has NWSC been doing towards accomplishing the President’s goal? Quite something.

The water body is presently working on a number of projects across the country whose object is to make clean and safe water an easy to get to resource. The regulator being the one in charge of sewerage services, is as well designing a number of developments that will ensure that human waste is not only disposed of in a manner that does not pose dangers to people in the vicinity, but also possibly treated to produce agricultural fertilizers as well as bio power.

Since cleaning up starts with the face, we are also going to start with Kampala which is the face of Uganda, to show what NWSC is doing exactly to make its services much more accessible, and more importantly, to demonstrate the water body’s resolve to pull off the president’s pledge we opened up with.

Kampala Water-Lake Victoria WATSUN Project

NWSC designed the project to improve the water supply reliability in the Kampala Metropolitan Region. The water body calculates to achieve this by upgrading and rehabilitating the existing water supply systems.

The milestone the water body envisions at the end of the day is not only one of a modernized and improved water network but also a much better water and sanitation service provision in informal (ghettos) settlements.

As the first practical approach towards achieving such milestone, NWSC has already awarded the Design and Supervision Consultancy tender for the project in question. At this moment, preparations of detailed designs is ongoing and, really, at advanced stages.

Coming to the provision of sanitation services in informal settlements, the water body has by this time procured a total of 44 sites for construction of the facilities as well as completed the related geotechnical investigations on those particular sites.

Kampala Sanitation Project (LVP11)

This one is intended to improve the sewerage and sanitation situation within Kampala and its environs. To this end, NWSC is practically done with the construction of the Nakivubo waste treatment plant.

This top-notch plant is located at Bugoloobi. The liquid part of the plant was completed and is currently operational so was the energy-cogeneration part. What is ongoing is the pre-commissioning and performance testing of the plant before NWSC can finally declare the job done and dusted.

Kakeeka Water Supply System       

The improved water and sewerage system comes in handy given that there is an upcoming industrial park in the area. The industrial park is attracting throngs of people in search of job opportunities to the area and the same has seen development generally picking up.

Seeing that Kakeeka is a vital place for industrial development and job creation, NWSC has laudably moved fast to ensure that it is connected to the modern water and sanitation grid.

So far, civil works involving expansion of the water treatment system by additional 4000m3/day are complete. The plant is under performance testing at the moment. NWSC is further planning to procure land to host two boreholes and a water reservoir in order to ease the provision of water to the wanainchi in the locality.

Sembabule

Under this project, NWSC set out to increase water production from 300m3 to 3000m3 per day. The water body intended to achieve this by upgrading and extending the water distribution network to the surrounding towns. NWSC further looked to construct a new intake and water treatment plant.

So far the regulator has completed, in entirety, the civil works and electro installation in Sembabule. What remains before the employer can unveil the improved water and sanitation works, is pre-testing the works for their suitability.

These projects are only a start of what the NWSC has in the pipeline. There is much more that the body is doing and the same will subsequently be covered right here.