Energy, water sector reform must lead to better services

The promise made by the new minister for infrastructure, James Musoni, that the split of water and electricity utility, EWSA, into three independent and privately owned firms will address the endemic electricity and water challenges is music to Rwandan ears. Despite EWSA’s best efforts, parts of Kigali went weeks without water while the issue of power generation remained a sour point. Minister Musoni promises that the money and skills needed to fund the country’s water and energy projects will be provided by the Rwanda Energy Group, which owns Energy Development Company Ltd and Energy Utility Company Ltd, and Water and Sanitation Corporation Ltd. All Rwandans will watch this new privatisation drive keenly, especially because this would not be the first attempt to solve the conundrum that is our water and energy deficits. Over the last decade the country’s only water and utility body has been split up into separate bodies and then consolidated again because of the failure to deliver. It is therefore essential that the two new bodies get things right. We will watch events unfold with a lot of interest. What do we wish for? We wish to bid farewell to constant power and water cuts because the very development of our nation largely depends on those two primary resources.

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Energy, water sector reform must lead to better services