No more water scarcity in Kampala metropolitan

By end of next month residents of Kampala, Wakiso and Mukuno will nolonger suffer from shortage of clean and safe water.
Recent upgrading and construction of water facilities in the greater Kampala assures residents in the Capital City Kampala of constant distribution of safe water with minimal disruptions.
The Managing Director of National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), Dr. Eng. Silver Mugisha, has assured customers in the Kampala Metropolitan area (Wakiso, Mukono, and Kampala) that there will be more water for them as the Katosi Water project reaches 95% completion.
Kampala has been listed among cities with unaffordable, undrinkable and extreme water stress for their population. This is according to a report released today by the World Resources Institute, an American global research organization.
According to the report demand for clean water has surpassed the supply so much so that 60 per cent of the population living in slum areas are not reached with clean water supply.
But the National Water and Sewerage Corporation says that the Katosi water treatment plant located in the Mukono district of central Uganda that will be operational by January or February 2021 will close the supply gap.
The plant is being built by Suez International, a subsidiary of the French group Suez, and by Sogea-Satom, a subsidiary of the construction group Vinci.
“We hope to complete the works in mid-February and March. We were faced with various challenges due to Covid 19 but the consultant together with the contractor is working very closely to ensure that the works are completed within the agreed time frame. I, therefore, want to apologize to our esteemed customers, mostly those in the south and eastern parts of Kampala, people who have for a long time had an unreliable water supply,” said Dr. Eng. Silver Mugisha.
He added; “All the civil works and the pipelines have already been completed except for a few areas, which are also being worked on. The electromechanical and sinking of the raw water pipes into the lake are the only major works pending.”
The 55km pipeline from Katosi, Mukono, Seeta, Namugongo, Naalya, Ntinda to Naguru is 95% done. The pipeline works are now being undertaken between Ntinda and Naguru Reservoir.
NWSC has installed the raw water pumps. Work on the pipes to abstract water 500 meters from the lake has already been completed.
The reservoir tanks in Nsumba Hill, Stone Hill, and booster pumping station in Namugongo are substantially complete.
The current demand for water in eastern Kampala, Wakiso, and Mukono is at 300 million liters per day. But the production plant in Gaba is only able to produce 240 million liters per day with a shortage of 60 million liters to supply the surrounding areas of the network and those on hilly areas.
National Water and Sewerage Corporation is constructing a new 240 million litres per day in Katosi to the east of Kampala to augment water supply in Kampala, Mukono and Wakiso.
The additional 160 million liters of water per day from Katosi and 240 million litres from Ggaba will take total daily production to 400 million liters of water per day. This is way above the current peak demand of 300 million liters per day.
“This will meet and exceed the water demand of Kampala Metropolitan city by February 2021,” the NWSC boss said.
The new Plant will also house; a 500m offshore abstraction pipeline into Lake Victoria, a scada system that will be integrated with the existing NWSC installations, a modern laboratory to enhance water quality monitoring and management, a mechanical workshop, a compact waste-water treatment plant, a solid waste handling and incineration facility, a modern staff housing estate with modern amenities and recreation facilities.
From the plant, water will be pumped to the new Nsumba reservoirs (40 million litres capacity) through a 9.5km bulk DN1400mm pipeline. The water will thereafter gravitate to Kampala via Mukono – Seeta – Sonde – Namugongo, through a 55km DN1400mm bulk pipeline.
This Project also entails construction of a 15 million litre reservoir in Sonde and booster station in Namugongo, and has a component to supply water to Katosi, Lugazi town and the surrounding areas.
The Katosi project is part of a major project to rehabilitate and extend the developing drinking water supply network in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The project is financed through a €150 million loan from the French Development Agency (AFD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) (€75 million each), a €20 million grant from the KreditanstaltfürWiederaufbau (KfW), an €8 million investment grant from the European Union Fund for Infrastructure in Africa (EU-AITF) and a €34 million contribution from the Government of Uganda.
Still in the Corporation’s project pipeline, is a new treatment plant along the shores of Lake Victoria at Kigo, to boost piped water supply to Kampala south, which covers Kaazi, Kajjansi, Entebbe, Buloba, Bulenga and Mpigi areas, and a faecal sludge treatment facility will also be constructed to increase sanitation and waste management in those areas.
The project will increase the Kampala-Entebbe corridor water supply by 135 million litres per day to meet the growing demand for services along Entebbe road.