The state-owned National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) and Suez Consulting, a subsidiary of the French Suez group, have signed a partnership agreement for the implementation of a drinking water, irrigation and sanitation project in southwestern Uganda. The project is financed by a 120 million euro loan from the French Development Agency (AFD).
The populations of Masaka, Isingiro, Mbarara will soon have new drinking water, irrigation and sanitation infrastructures. A partnership has just been signed between National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), the company that provides public drinking water services in Uganda, and Suez Consulting, a subsidiary of the French group Suez, specialising in water and waste treatment.
The works on site will be carried out by NWSC, with Suez Consulting providing technical assistance. The two partners will first build a water intake on the Kagera River, one of the sources of the Nile, located on the border between Uganda and Tanzania. The station will be able to pump 680,000 m3 of water per day. The raw water will follow a 70 km long pipe. Throughout this corridor, water intakes will be made to irrigate plantations in southwestern Uganda.
Water for 1 million people
Silver Mugisha, NWSC’s Executive Director, recommended to his teams and project assistants to take into account the complaints of the people living along the corridor. In the city of Isingiro, a drinking-water plant will be built. It will provide drinking water to people living in small communities along the pipeline. Another drinking water plant will be built in Masaka City. Two other stations will be rehabilitated in Masaka and Nabajuzi.
The project also includes a sanitation component, including the construction of two wastewater treatment plants in Masaka and Mbarara. NWSC and Suez Consulting will start work in August 2020, for a period of 60 months. According to the public company, the water and sanitation project is expected to provide drinking water, irrigation water and sanitation services to 300,000 people in the city of Isingiro, 350,000 in Mbarara and 350,000 in Masaka. A total of one million people will benefit from this work.
“We were faced with a long-standing challenge regarding water management in the cities mentioned. In collaboration with the Government of Uganda, the Ministry of Water and Environment, the Ministry of Finance and development partners, we obtained funding to implement the project,” says Silver Mugisha, NWSC’s Executive Director. The project was financed by the Ugandan government through a loan obtained in January 2019 from the French Development Agency (AFD).
Jean Marie Takouleu
