National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) has threatened to cut off water supply to several government institutions unless they clear their huge bills in the next one week.
NWSC Managing Director Dr Silver Mugisha revealed Tuesday that Mulago Hospital, Ministry of Defence and Uganda Prisons are among their leading defaulters. It turns out Mulago owes sh800m, Prisons sh12bn and Defence sh7bn.
“Our job is to give services and when customers pay, they enable us invest and do better. We encourage all customers to pay bills,” Mugisha said as he took journalists on a tour of upgrades at Ggaba Water Works in Kampala.
“We advise institutions like Mulago, Ministry of Defence and Prisons among many others to clear bills by next week. The Finance Permanent Secretary has given us a go ahead to act after he confirmed that funds have been released to cater for water bills.”
“We use revenue from customers who pay bills to extend services to more people. Infrastructure projects require money,” he said.
During the tour, NWSC confirmed that there will be a shutdown of water supply to many areas in Kampala on Thursday. This, he said, to enable their contractor complete and upgrade facilities that will increase the amount of water available on the network.
“All civil works at Ggaba water works are done and the contractor is now connecting the old system to the new system. The previous shutdowns are part of ongoing refurbishment works at Ggaba to add 50 million litres of water daily to the grid,” Mugisha told the press.
“We’re also automating Ggaba water works to make the water treatment processes more efficient.”