Rapid urbanisation, population enhance and climate variability comprise strained present networks, main to intermittent provide in some areas
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Millions of residents in northern and western Kampala are poised to comprise the abet of extra agreeable water provide as the Nationwide Water and Sewerage Company (NWSC), with financing from the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), quickens a prime community growth connecting the Katosi Water Treatment Plant to the metropolis’s rapid-rising suburbs.
The mission, segment of a wider rehabilitation, restructuring and extension of the Bigger Kampala Metropolitan Space water community, targets to stabilise provide across what NWSC calls “Kampala Water Metropolis” and to address chronic bottlenecks which comprise stored the plant working at half its means.
French Ambassador to Uganda Virginie Leroy, who toured the mission final week, described the €480 million French-funded Kit 2B as a strategic investment to translate excessive production at Katosi into agreeable access for customers. She highlighted the mission’s twin point of curiosity: infrastructure efficiency and social inclusion.
“Kampala is rising with out note, and guaranteeing that water production meets quiz of is no longer correct an engineering disaster, it is miles a social and economic crucial,” Leroy talked about.
She also popular that the mission integrates a pro-sad factor, co-financed with KfW, which has already delivered 1,400 pay as you walk public standpipes and 64 sanitation services serving about 450,000 residents in informal settlements.
160 million litres per day
The Katosi plant has a maximum production strategy of 160 million litres per day nonetheless at display operates at spherical 52% attributable to constraints in transmission and distribution, per plant manager Joseph Tweheyo Baine. The continuing growth targets to cast off these bottlenecks by the pattern of new reservoirs and extended pipelines to excessive-quiz of areas.
The infrastructure diagram entails 70 kilometres of major transmission pipelines and three major reservoirs at Kanyanya, Kabulengwa and Mutungo. The reservoirs vary in means from one million litres to ten million litres and are designed to give a plan end to force administration, stability provide and reinforce resilience across the metropolitan community.
At Kanyanya Hill, excavation for a 10 million-litre reservoir is total, whereas Mutungo Hill is seeing basis works for a one million-litre elevated steel tank. Excavation at Kabulengwa Hill is determined to birth up in February earlier than developing a 2.5 million-litre bolstered concrete reservoir.
Pipe-laying is underway along the Mpererwe–Kawempe–Nansana hall, with completion of the total mission targeted for July 2027. A low-level bulk transmission line serving Kiira–Kasangati is scheduled to be finalised by December 2026 and can lengthen provide to Namugongo, Buwaate, Bulindo, Mulawa and surrounding communities.
For NWSC, the mission represents every an operational and financial milestone. Since 2013, beneath Managing Director Eng. Dr. Silver Mugisha, the utility has expanded from 23 towns to 287 nationwide, whereas its asset sinful has grown from Shs650 billion to roughly Shs5 trillion. It now serves over one million active water connections, reaching an estimated 22 million of us. Below its 2024–2027 Company Thought, NWSC targets to develop bigger connections to 1.1 million and lengthen services to 24 million Ugandans.
Alex Gisagara, NWSC senior adviser for engineering services, called the growth the “lacking link” in translating Katosi’s production means into tangible advantages for households. “It is no longer sufficient to generate water on the plant. With out transmission and storage infrastructure, production does no longer equate to form,” he talked about.
The French-backed growth also shows broader traits in pattern finance. Following the fantastic exhaust of preliminary financing, AFD authorized extra funds in December 2025 to develop bigger Katosi’s production by 80,000 cubic metres per day and lengthen the community by 50 kilometres. The programme also receives backing from the European Union and the European Funding Monetary institution, illustrating the characteristic of blended finance in addressing infrastructure gaps in with out note urbanising African cities.
Analysts inform the growth is doubtless to comprise obvious economic spillovers. Superior water provide underpins industrial and residential pattern, reduces public well being risks, and enhances investor self belief in Kampala’s property and alternate atmosphere. It also reduces the force on informal water vendors, who on the total price excessive charges for inconsistent provide.
Water challenges
Uganda faces ongoing challenges in water provision. Rapid urbanisation, population enhance and climate variability comprise strained present networks, main to intermittent provide in some areas. By unlocking Katosi’s elephantine means, the growth could well presumably provide a extra predictable service, serving to to fulfill quiz of in key suburban hubs at the side of Kira, Kasangati, Gayaza, Matugga, Kawempe, Nansana and Wakiso.
Completion of the Katosi give a plan end to is predicted to stabilise provide by the slay of the final decade, handing over a strategic enhance to Kampala’s water infrastructure.
The put up Katosi growth to plan end Kampala water provide looked first on The Just Uganda:.
