Africa-Press – Uganda. The government on Friday launched the construction works of the 72km underground piped water system to draw water from the River Nile at Karuma to Gulu City.
In January 2022, a French company, Sogea Satom was awarded the contract of the construction project expected to take two years at a combined cost of Shs170 billion (co-funded through Shs66.8 billion grants from KfW and Shs103.5 billion loan from the World Bank).
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The launching ceremony was presided over by Ms Betty Amongi, the minister of Gender, Labor and Social Development; National Water and Sewerage Corporation Managing Director Dr Eng Silver Mugisha, and KFW Director for Eastern Africa and African Union, Mr Christoph Tiskens, among others.
Once complete, this intake plant of the project sitting opposite Karuma Hydropower dam shall have an abstraction capacity of 30 million liters per day, and the capacity of the water treatment plant constructed shall initially be 10 million liters per day.
In his remarks, Dr Eng Mugisha said the initiative being implemented under the second phase of the Integrated Program to Improve the Living Conditions in Gulu (IPILC) will supplement the existing production of 10 million liters per day from the recently refurbished treatment plant in the city (Gulu).
According to him, the Karuma-Gulu Water Treatment & Supply Project is one of the initiatives being undertaken by NWSC to expand its customer base to at least 25 million consumers in the next five years.
“We want to grow our customers, we currently have about 800,000 customers serving about 15 million Ugandans and we want to grow this to 1.2 million customers and serve about 25 million Ugandans through a number of strategies within our corporate plan,” he said.
He cautioned the contractors against unnecessary delays during the construction works.
From the Karuma treatment plant, the water will run through an underground pipe system along Karuma-Gulu highway up to Gulu (Customs Corner), where a new reservoir will be constructed.
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Along the 72km pipeline stretch, new water supply systems will pass through six small towns en-route, namely; Karuma, Kamdini, Minakulu, Bobi, Palenga, and Koro Abili.
Ms Amongi, said the ultimate objective of the project is to shift from the current ‘some-water-for-all’ status to ‘universal water and sanitation for all.
“It is against this background that we are today launching the construction works of the Karuma-Gulu Water Treatment & Supply Project,” Ms Amongi said.
According to her, the fundamental obligation of the water and environment sector is to accelerate water access coverage from the current 70 per cent to 100 per cent; this can only be achieved through close cooperation with various economic partners.
Gulu City has frequently been experiencing intermittent water supply due to the unreliability of the primary source of its water – the Oyitino dam.
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With the anticipated increase in demand in the Gulu water supply area with the acquisition of city status, the capacity of the Oyitino dam and the six supplementary boreholes (production wells) shall be far outstripped within a few years.
Additional reporting by Teddy Dokotho
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