A report commissioned by the Ministry of Water and Environment has revealed that about Shs51 billion is lost to corruption. Evelyn Lirri explores how this money is abused.

Most Ugandans pay bribes to have water flow into their homes, a new survey has revealed.

Although the survey does not mention how much people pay in bribes to have water services extended to them, it says at least 56 per cent of respondents interviewed for a survey conducted for the Ministry of Water and Environment reported having paid, or knowing someone who paid a bribe to have water connected to their homes.

The baseline survey, on integrity in the Uganda water supply and sanitation sector, was funded by the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Programme.

It was presented recently at a water sector review meeting held in Kampala.

With the government already battling poor management in the water sector, it hopes this survey will be used to improve transparency and accountability in the water sector.

If it is true that 10 per cent of the money invested in water is lost to corruption as the survey found, then the water sector may have lost as much as Shs51 billion between 2002/3 and 2008/9 financial years. The price of this corruption is now being paid by the 37 per cent -about 10 million Ugandans who still do not have access to clean and safe water.

State Minister for water Jennifer Namuyangu confirmed to Saturday Monitor that there is corruption in the sector.

Culprits netted

"That's true; we have been arresting several people. I personally arrested the water officer for Kotido recently when over Shs200 million meant for water disappeared in one year," she said.

"The water officer for Apac was arrested, the one in Ntungamo was suspended and we shall continue arresting more people."

She said some people contracted to offer connection services end up cheating customers by inflating the prices.

"We are now looking at several options of how we can deal with this issue including our own manpower. This could cut down the costs," Ms Namuyangu said.

She said some customers don't know their rights and end up bribing in an effort to get faster services.

"We have to sensitise the people that to get connected, you don't have to bribe," Ms Namuyangu said.

According to the report, the national water coverage stands at 63 per cent- a figure Ms Namuyangu said has since jumped to 65 per cent. However, more than half of the country's districts are still below the national average.

For example, the survey found that huge disparities still exist in water coverage throughout the country, ranging from 12 per cent in the least served district of Kaboong in north eastern Uganda to 95 percent converge in the south western district of Kabale.

Ms Namuyangu says high water coverage has been achieved in some areas but low funding remains a challenge in increasing access to the whole country. "With the current funding of 2.6 per cent of the national budget, we cannot do much. Taking water to some areas where there is no ground water is more capital intensive and so we need much more money," she said.

In urban areas, access to safe water stands at 61 per cent; this breaks down to 72 per cent in 23 large towns, while for 160 small towns it averages 46 per cent.

This low water coverage has also affected access to sanitation facilities, with the national average population with sanitation facilities standing at 69 per cent.

But this figure is way below the target of at least 70 per cent.

Respondents were chosen from rural and urban water consumers, local government staff, water authority representatives, contractors, National Water and Sewerage Corporation staff and private water operators.

The bribes, the survey shows were paid for different services. For example, respondents who said they did not experience a problem in getting water connection had actually paid extra money outside the official connection fees to get connected.

"According to the respondents, this extra money was demanded by staff from the service providers," the survey notes.

Information obtained from the respondents further indicated that bribes to make metre bypass was common among both customers in NWSC at 56 per cent and those under private operators at 58 per cent.

Private suppliers

In addition, bribing to speed up access to the water service was more common under private suppliers than under the NWSC.

The study was conducted to identify levels of financial leakages and corruption in the management of the Water Sector and Sanitation systems experienced by NWSC, private water operators, rural and urban consumers, water authority representatives, district officials and contractors/suppliers and also to assess the level of transparency in decision-making processes related to allocation of water resources.

The study focused on people's experiences of acquiring water services, the quality of the services provided, billing, consumer satisfaction and their experiences and perceptions of corruption within the water sector.

The results show that generally, at least 75 per cent of all customers are satisfied with the quality of water.

However, the majority of those satisfied were customers who get their water from private operators at 80 per cent compared to 73 per cent of customers under NWSC who said they were satisfied with the quality of water.

Those who said they were not satisfied with the NWSC pointed out irregular water flows, smelly water and hard water. Overall, 72 per cent of respondents said they did not experience problems in securing a new connection. A high connection cost was pointed out by 28 percent of the respondents as a major obstacle in getting water.

Out of those who had ever been disconnected, 40 per cent indicated it took them between four-seven days to get re-connected.

"Worth noting is that 64 per cent (approximately 46 per cent of all respondents) that did not experience a problem in securing a connection had paid extra money outside official connection fees to get connected."

Besides the high tariffs, customers also complained that they are being over billed and utility providers tamper with metres, which leads to inaccurate, often exaggerated bill costs.

Soliciting bribes

The survey says most of Uganda's water problems are due to corruption and inefficiencies in the water system.

This has been confirmed by the 56 percent of the respondents interviewed who said they had heard about a fellow staff member or customer perpetrating a corrupt act. Some 65% said the act had been reported to senior management, a further 60 reported the case to the middle management staff, while the rest reported a suspected bribery case to the Inspectorate of Government and the police.

"The willingness of staff to report corrupt practices, calls for promotion of institutional arrangements within the sector for protecting whistleblowers," the report says.

Ms Beatrice Anywar, a member of the parliamentary committee on Natural Resources and the shadow minister for Environment blames inequality in clean water access to lack of political will and corruption.

"It is not now that Karamoja region has registered low water coverage, what has government been doing all this time to take water for the region? Because of corruption, even money meant to construct dams in the region was diverted," she said.

The NWSC supplies water to Uganda's big towns while the private operators mostly run water and sanitation facilities in small towns and rural areas with populations of between 5,000 to 30,000 and they are supervised by water boards.

A total of 23,851 customers countrywide are served by private suppliers. It is here that corruption was found to be more manifest especially at the level of awarding contracts to the water suppliers.

More than half of the respondents (51 per cent) reported that there was political interference in the selection of the private water suppliers and another 15 per cent said political interference was just fairly common.

"In a situation like this where the politicians are themselves the perpetrators of corruption by allowing personal interests to interfere in technical considerations, political will to fight corruption indeed becomes a challenge," the survey notes.