Association of Private Water Operators

We wish to comment on the remarks by a Ministry of Water and Environment senior Engineer in charge of operations and maintenance – Joshua Ssenengo – “Don’t frustrate water projects’ that appeared in New Vision of Friday, October 25th 2013. In his remarks, he mentioned that connivance between town clerks and private water operators has masterminded poor operations and maintenance of water systems….. He went on to say that most water projects which have ceased working are a result of connivance between urban council officials, especially town clerks and the private water system operators.

We are dismayed by such misleading and incorrect statements from a MWE official; We wish such arguments should be put to a test.

The private sector participation in Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS) was based on a policy decision of the year 2000. Private Operators have made remarkable contribution where the business environment has been conducive. Even where there are no long-term contracts, the Private Operators have made investments that generate results way beyond their contract periods. This has been done in line with business thinking and current MWE policy on private sector participation.

The Private Operators always take up small towns immediately after construction and commissioning, a stage at which the towns have very few connections, are faced with all the construction related problems and are generally difficult to manage. Moreover it has been established that some towns’ water supply were poorly (and unsustainably) designed and constructed. The operators in true business planning process, and against a high risk, develop these water supply systems, by investing for example in pipe extensions, increased customer connections and human resource development. Most of the key performance indicators such as non revenue water, billing and collection efficiency show that there has been significant improvement in the performance of small towns’ water supply schemes.

Private Operators at times inherit poor/shoddy work resulting from a combination of poor design, substandard materials, wrong selection of pumps and generators and poor contract supervision by the Ministry of Water and Environment. A number of cases have been reported where operators have upon getting contracts in newly commissioned schemes have reached on ground only to find poorly sized pumps, non functional generators and at times completely missing disinfection stages etc., a combination that makes service delivery very difficult for the Private Operators and their immediate supervisors, the Local Water Authorities In such situations, the operator spends a bigger part of the first three year contract fixing problems and then they are blamed for non performance.

Despite the operation challenges which are mainly attributed to the lack of an enabling environment, the Private Operators have done their best. We wish to bring it to Mr. Sennengo’s attention that at the recently concluded completion workshop for the Global Partnership on Output Based Aid (GPOBA) pilot projects in small towns, it was clearly indicated that the Private Operators had done very well in pre-financing the outputs that they had agreed on with the World Bank and the Government, even with a surplus on the initially committed funds.

The OBA project clearly proves that the POs are at a stage where they can be able to mobilize resources and make a significant improvement to water service delivery, but this can only be possible in a fair and enabling business environment. Indeed, the Private Operators were able to achieve their output targets because they implemented the project in a framework where there was no meddling from the MWE staff; they worked under a Worldbank appointed competent technical verification team, to oversee the technical aspects and a respectable fiduciary agent for the financial aspects.

From the above, APWO – the Private Operators’ Umbrella Organization feels that a lot of misrepresentation of facts has gone on for long which has depicted the Private Operators as non performers and unprofessional.

In this regards, we wish to state that it is NOT TRUE that most water projects that have ceased working are a result of connivance between urban council officials and the private water operators. To the contrary, most of the water schemes that have run into operation challenges are a result of connivance between the Ministry of Water Engineers and Contractors, and to some extent the misuse of the subsidy/conditional grant from the centre. Most of these schemes already have clear short comings at the time of commissioning before the takeover by the private water operators.

In conclusion, we propose that the Ministry officials stop making anti Private Operators (PO) statements, which are not only misleading but unfair and incorrect. Rather than pointing fingers, being diversionary and making erroneous statements, there is need for continued collaboration of various players in the urban water sub sector, with the common aim of ensuring sustainable water service provision to Ugandans. Continuous sector performance reviews, audits and evaluations, are a better way to understand the situation in the sector, establish value for money at different levels of the service delivery chain and ensure that Uganda remains on course to meet the targets and achieve the Millennium Develop Goals that are related or impacted on by access to clean and safe water.

APWO Secretariat