Water taps have dried up in some parts of Kigali as the Water and Sanitation Corporation (WASAC) is upgrading the Nzove-Ntora pipeline, one of the major pipelines in the capital, The New Times has learnt. Upgrading works on the 9.36km pipeline from Nzove Water Treatment Plant to Ntora reservoir was funded by the Japanese government and will cost over Rwf 20.1 billion. According to WASAC, the disruption to water supply, which started on Wednesday, August 10, has affected over 20 neighbourhoods connected to Nzove water treatment plant and will continue until Friday. As some parts of Kigali City face acute shortage of water supply, WASAC said the problem is partly due to “undersized” pipelines, which cannot distribute all the water produced daily. In an interview with The New Times, Innocent Gashugi, the Manager of Water Operations Services at Wasac, said the new Nzove-Ntora water pipeline will carry around 87,000m3/day to different parts of the city. “Upgrading works on the Nzove-Ntora transmission pipeline will increase the amount of water distributed by the current Nzove-Ntora water pipeline from 35,000 cubic metres to 87,000 cubic metres per day,” Gashugi said. He added, the upgraded pipeline will solve water shortages in Gasanze and Nduba as well as increase water supply in Gisozi and Nyarutarama, among other areas. Water used in Kigali City is supplied by four treatment plants namely Nzove, Kimisagara, Kanzenze (Metito) and Karenge. “With all the four water treatment plants we currently have, if we had bigger pipelines, we wouldn’t be having supply issues in Kigali,” Gashugi said. He added that the new pipeline will have a diameter of 900mm, making it the largest in Rwanda. The pipes to be replaced have 600mm of diameter. Nzove water treatment plant currently produces 60,000 cubic metres per day, while Ntora reservoir has the capacity of 10,000 cubic metres. As of June 2022, Kigali City consumed 117,000 cubic metres of water per day. According to figures from the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, water access in Kigali City stands at 95.6 per cent.
