The Ministry of Infrastructure has revealed plans for major reforms at the Water and Sanitation Corporation (WASAC), a move aimed at helping the institution execute better service delivery. According to Claver Gatete, the Minister of Infrastructure, based on an analysis that was carried out on the operations of the utility body, officials will be looking to implement new changes, notable of which is splitting the institution into two, so as to make it more manageable. He made the comments on Tuesday, July 13 as part of the explanations he gave to members of parliament, in regard to the problems that have often characterised WASAC’s administration, management of resources, and offering of tenders. An example of such problems, the Auditor General’s report of 2019 showed that WASAC had up to 19 water projects whose total contract amounted to Rwf20.1 billion, which faced several issues, including delays ranging between three months to two years, and noncompliance to contractual terms. MPs quizzed Gatete about water projects like Nzove 1 and Nzove 2 that are operating at less than 50 per cent of their capacity, leading to water shortages in some places. In his answer, he said the government has been continuously following up on the WASAC’s challenges, and that they think it would be good to split WASAC into two institutions: one to be in charge of infrastructure development, and the other to be for water-sale business. He also noted that there will be efforts to make sure that the operation systems of WASAC will be improved accordingly, so as to avoid faults that come from poor systems. There is also a plan to replace some infrastructure so as to curb water losses due to leakages. Gatete said that 568 kilometres of water pipes will be replaced in Kigali, while 1112 kilometres of pipes will be replaced in other towns by the end of this year. According to the 2019/2020 Auditor General’s report, unbilled water and revenue leaks were a serious issue for WASAC, costing it millions in losses. For instance, in 2020, WASAC produced 52,399,573 cubic metres of water but only 30,781,422 cubic metres (58.74 per cent) was billed, meaning that 41.26 per cent of the water produced was unbilled.
