President Museveni commissions Gulu Water Supply and Sanitation Project

 

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has commissioned the UGX 82.3Billion phase 1 Gulu Water Supply and Sanitation Project.

The project is geared at upgrading and expansion of existing water treatment plant from a production capacity of 4, 000,000 litres of water per day to 10, 000,000 litres of water per day.

This project aims at improving access to water and sanitation services in priority areas, and improve the living conditions  of people in Gulu

The President was accompanied by German Ambassador, Mathias Schauer, Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah, State ministers; Beatrice Anywar and Ronald Kibuule, Board Chairman Eng. Badru M.Kiggundu, Deputy NRM Secretary General Richard Todwong and Deputy MD Technical Services Eng. Johnson Amayo.

The access rates of water in Gulu currently vary from 91 % in Bungatira Sub-County to 95 % in Awach Sub-County. Gulu has 626 domestic water points which serve a total of 248,972 people – 139,550 in rural areas and the commissioning of the new project will see this greatly improve.

Since the early 1990’s, Uganda has made significant strides to build a comprehensive legal and well defined institutional framework to improve water supply and sanitation and water resources management.

The Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE) is responsible for determining priorities, setting policies and standards for water development as well as managing and regulating water resources including water and sanitation services. The National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), an autonomous public utility owned by the Government under the MWE, is responsible for WSS provision in 30 large and 170 small towns

 

Significant policy reforms included the commercialization and modernization of the NWSC, decentralization and private sector participation in small towns, adoption of integrated water resource management (IWRM) principles in national policies, and creation of four Water Management Zones (WMZ). These reforms, coupled with significant capital investments have led Uganda to remarkable improvements in water supply service provision, especially in urban areas where coverage increased from 43 percent in 1990 to 77 percent in 2017