By Mulengera Reporters
Being a GoU-owned parastatal, NWSC has always had to comply with performance targets set for them by their employer who is the Government of Uganda, on behalf of the people. This performance requirement demands that NWSC, among other things, serves all the people of Uganda in the mandated territory areas (basically the 276 urban centers) to total satisfaction.
That’s why the Corporation conducts regular Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSS), annually, as a way of assessing itself and getting feedback on areas that the customers may not be satisfied about, and therefore require improvement. This CSS, as was explained during the recent NWSC baraza at the Bugolobi Resource Center, is a key performance indicator for the Corporation.
And the Customer Satisfaction Index for the just-ended FY2024/2025 revealed that 80% of water consumers are satisfied with the service NWSC is rendering. The Customer Satisfaction Index focuses on areas like what the customers think about the quality of water supplied, timeliness & accuracy of the billing system, water supply reliability, customer care quality, the convenience with which a customer can pay his monthly bill, frequency of service-related updates, complaints resolution mechanisms and the promptness with which customer queries are responded to.
For the FY2023/2024 Customer Satisfaction Index survey, 25,000 customers were sampled; equaling to 3% of the Corporation’s active customer base. The results indicated that 80% were super satisfied with the service; up from the preceding FY’s 78%.
In order to validate these findings, NWSC also contracted an external firm to conduct a separate survey to eliminate any biases and the results painted an even more rosy picture, according to the Corporation officials. This was disclosed in response to one of the participants in the recent Baraza who demanded to know why the Corporation doesn’t allow to be assessed by an external entity to ensure credibility for the survey outcomes.
The Customer Satisfaction Index survey revealed that customers within the Kampala Metropolitan Area districts of Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono and Mpigi districts were more satisfied with the service than their counterparts in the more water-stressed NWSC territorial regions. Customers in other regions have access problems and a lot more service-related complaints largely because of the poor state in which the water service delivery infrastructure is in inside their respective regions. But gratefully, the Corporation officials used the same Baraza session to give a detailed explanation regarding what is being done to expand access and improve on the quality of service to all Ugandans including those living in areas that are currently water-stressed.
The Customer Satisfaction Index survey report also shows that institutional water customers are the most satisfied at 79%, followed by commercial customers at 78% and the domestic customers at 78%. Led by MD Dr. Silver Mugisha and DMD Eng Jackson Amayo, the Corporation officials explained to the large gathering that filled the meeting hall to capacity that the service quality will even get better with passage of time especially as the entity’s new Corporate Plan (2024-2027) gets rolled out and takes root.
WATER COSTS EXPLAINED:
During the same Baraza session, Kampala Water General Manager Eng Mohamood Lutaaya responded to and clarified on questions relating to why some Ugandans see the cost for water access as being unnecessarily too high. Some citizens have gone as far as demanding that government offers them water for free since it’s sourced from natural sources given by God.
Lutaaya, whose Greater Kampala region has roughly 450,000 customers 90% of whom require and receive water supply 24 hours a day, explained that there has to be a tariff because the Corporation has input and infrastructure-related costs to meet. Input costs account for 80% of the total cost and infrastructure-related costs up to 20%.
As NWSC’s Dr. Rose Kaggwa assured on the quality of water the Corporation supplies, Eng Lutaaya asserted that much as water is God-given and therefore freely available, there is a lot of value addition work that has to be invested into for the customer to end up with safely consumable water.
That a lot of costs go into the treatment/purification and pumping of the water whose quality has to comply with the set out guidelines set by both WHO and UNBS. Eng Lutaaya explained that input costs relate to things like the Shs9bn the Corporation monthly pays to UMEME for the electricity it uses nationally and Shs4.5bn for the purchase of chemicals used.
There are also fuel-related expenses on which Kampala Water alone spends Shs400m per month. There are also leakage fixing-related costs which are incurred under the maintenance component and that is countrywide. This elaborate explanation by Eng Lutaaya made people in the audience, and those who were following virtually, to realize that National Water & Sewerage Corporation was actually not billing them as expensively and exploitatively as they fallaciously thought all along. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at [email protected]).