The ministry of Water and Environment, through National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), plans to increase water access in Uganda’s towns and villages from 77% to 100% in the next three years. The goal is to reach an additional 8.5 million people.

NWSC has consequently launched a project codenamed “100% Service Coverage Acceleration Project (SCAP100)” to deliver this ambitious target.

According to the corporation, this project will deliver universal and equitable access to safe water for all people in all the villages under its jurisdiction by 2020.

Besides, Uganda will have achieved Sustainable Development Goal number six on water and sanitation for all, as well as the country’s own Vision 2040 goal of increasing the percentage of people with access to safe, piped water from 15% to 100%.

NWSC continues to defy the notion that public enterprises can’t deliver. The corporation has, for instance, expanded its water coverage from 23 to 175 towns across 62 districts in the last three years alone.

In recent years, the corporation’s installations have become more visible in Uganda’s towns and villages. For its old clients, NWSC is generally perceived as an efficient and effective organisation.

Such positive rating for a public enterprise has been possible because it is relatively well managed and the government has not overly interfered with its semi-autonomous status.

Under the project, NWSC seeks to extend water to 12,000 villages in 80 districts that are in dire need of safe water. That means bringing water points to within 200 metres of every household in these villages.

To achieve this in three years, NWSC needs Shs 213bn. The corporation has raised 58% of this budget from internal revenue and the government is to raise the difference, which is Shs 30 billion per year for three years.

National Water and Sewerage Corporation has, over the years, shown that albeit being a public enterprise, it can be trusted to deliver services to Ugandans.

Therefore, it deserves all the support needed to take safe water to every town and village by the year 2020.