KAMPALA: National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) has increased water tariff by 6 percent with effect from this month.
Mr Samuel Apedel, the NWSC senior manager of public relations, told press yesterday: “The price rise is being driven by high fuel prices, depreciation of the shilling against the dollar, which is affecting importation of chemicals and other equipment, high transportation costs and high costs of diesel we use to run our booster stations.”
Mr Apedel said domestic users who have been previously paying Shs3,516 per unit (1,000 litres of water), will now pay Shs3,735 representing an increase of Shs219 for every unit of water. This means domestic consumers will now pay additional Shs4.22 per 20 litres of water they consume.
The tariff for public standpipes, which serves the poorest segment of society, remains unchanged at Shs1,060 per unit and Shs21.2 per 20 litres.
Government institutions will now be paying Shs3,771 per unit and Shs75 per 20 litres up from Shs3,558 a unit and Shs71 per 20 litres.
Commercial institutions which consume less than 1,500 litres per month, will now pay Shs4,473 up from Shs4, 220.
Those who consume more than 1,500 litres of water per month will pay Shs3, 575 up from Shs3, 373.
Industrial consumers have had their tariff raised from Shs4,220 to Shs4, 473.
On Tuesday, social media was awash with a July 5 internal circular from Mr George Okol, the NWSC commercial director, to NWSC general and area managers to update the tariff tables and reflect in their billing systems the new rates.
According to the circular, Mr Okol told the staff that the NWSC Board of Directors approved the 6 percent increment during its sitting on June 24 in accordance to Statutory Instrument no 50 of 2018.
