Non-Payment of Water Bills threatening Service Continuity; NWSC MD Mugisha

KAMPALA – NWSC is to disconnect non-paying customers because nonpayment of water bills by some customer segments is affecting the ability of National to effectively deliver services and meet its obligations, Dr. Eng. Silver Mugisha, the corporation’s Managing Director has announced.

Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, May 2, 2023 at the head offices in Nakasero, Dr. Mugisha said that non-payment of water bills by a number of customer segments including the Uganda Police Force, Uganda Prisons, the Ministry of Defence, and other government institutions is threatening service continuity.

“Management has taken a painful decision to implement a strict disconnection strategy for all outstanding arrears of more than one month, with immediate effect,” Dr. Mugisha said.

He said all government institutions that have accumulated domestic arrears over and above the discount invoicing threshold approved by the Ministry of Finance will be disconnected, with immediate effect, after failed attempts to heed the PSST’s directive to consider water bills as the first call on quarterly releases, consistently.

Government entities have failed to clear outstanding water bills, in billions.

Dr. Mugisha was specifically concerned with the Ministry of Defense and Veteran Affairs, Uganda Police Service and Uganda Prisons Service which have accumulated arrears of UGX19b over and above the existing Shs43b arrears that the Ministry of Finance has accepted to budget for and clear.

The 19b arrears accrued between July 2022 and March 2023.

Speaking to domestic users, who owe about UGX 18b, Eng Mugisha said that each and every coin counts.

“We pay for power, chemicals, and repair materials among other production inputs for every cubic meter of water supplied to customers. The providers of the production inputs need money to continue supplying us. We therefore urge customers to pay their water bills from as low as 5000UGX and above” he said

Furthermore, Eng Mugisha said that the corporation is implementing projects in Soroti, Kanungu, Kalungu, Lyantonde, Moroto, Kyankwanzi, Kihihi, and Tororo, among others using internally generated resources. Delayed bill payment will affect these projects among others in the pipeline.

NWSC had previously agreed with the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development to budget for UGX.43 billion arrears which would be cleared in the next three years.

Last year, Dr. Mugisha, told the Finance Ministry that they appreciated their support towards the settlement of water consumption charges in various MDAs on a quarterly basis.

“However, the funds being released are not sufficient to clear all the bills. As a result, the bills have accumulated,” he told Ramadhan Ggoobi, the finance ministry permanent secretary.

 “This is a constraint to our cash inflows as a corporation and affects both the operations and public service delivery,” he said.

On the suggestions to use prepaid water meters to guard against non-payment of water bills, the NWSC boss said that his administration is open to any innovation that presents cost-benefit advantages to its business conduct.

“Our preliminary assessment of prepaid meter technology is that it is a new innovation for which we don’t have robust successful case studies. Our own case study for low-income and ministry accounts has not yielded superior efficiency gains,” he told reporters.

Quoting a preliminary financial assessment, he said the overall investment cost for the entire NWSC meter replacement operation lies between UGX 800b-1000Bn, an investment that the utility firm isn’t willing to take on, but rather, invests it in serving more Ugandans with clean safe water.

Eng. Mugisha maintained that NWSC’s current emphasis is to serve those who are not yet served, rather than creating convenience for those already served at a huge opportunity investment cost.

Eng Johnson Amayo, the Deputy Managing Director in charge of technical services at NWSC said that delayed bill payment is affecting service delivery.

We are currently undertaking a project to evacuate more water from the Katosi Water Treatment plant to saturate water supply. However, these efforts are being affected by lack of funds.” he mentioned.

When completed, the new mains will boost water supply to Kanyanya, Gayaza road, Bombo road, Hoima road, among many others parts of the Kampala Metropolitan Service Area.

NWSC RESPONDS TO MALICIOUS PROPAGANDA

Eng Mugisha informed the press that the corporation had fully recovered from a hacking incident that affected the corporation last year.

Mugisha clarified that; “All data lost during the ransom ware attack was reconstructed to allow for a full audit by the Auditor General.” he said.

He dismissed allegations that there was a problem with the NWSC billing system.

He said the billing system was robust and blamed the allegations on unscrupulous individuals engaged in illegal water use.

He called on responsible authorities handle issues of malicious social media behaviour, computer misuse and sabotage of public goods and services, which are a threat to the well being of many brands.

“Malicious Social media behavior destructs our focus on service delivery, since we spend a lot of time making clarification to baseless propaganda. We urge the response authorities to help us curb this vice.” he said