The water sector is making measurable progress across the country, but lawmakers say there is a deeper last-mile crisis in which entire communities remain without reliable safe water.
The warning came after Water and Environment Minister Gen. (Rtd) Kahinda Otafiire presented the ministry’s performance for the 2025/26 financial year. According to the Ministry, national access to safe water increased from 71.2 per cent to 73.6 per cent surpassing the annual target.
But statistics indicate that over 12000 villages and cells still lack an improved water source. MPs say that gap cannot be treated as a statistical residue when water scarcity is directly shaping public health, education, livelihoods and resilience to drought.
The ministry reported rural water access at 72 per cent, urban coverage at 75.2 per cent and access in refugee-hosting communities at 76 per cent. Functionality remained relatively high, at 85 per cent in rural areas, 92 per cent in urban centres and 91 per cent in refugee settlements.
Government also rehabilitated 27 piped-water systems and 1,238 rural point-water facilities, restoring reliable supply to an estimated ovet 464,000 people.
But MPs argue that the more difficult question is whether the water infrastructure is being designed, located and maintained to serve the communities that remain furthest from the system. Napak District Woman MP, Faith Nakut, the distinction between rural and urban communities should not determine whether a household can access a nearby safe water connection.
The Water Act allows a person temporarily at a place, or an occupier or resident of land where a natural source exists, to use that water for domestic purposes, subject to statutory limitations. The National Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy also require the State to ensure that Ugandans enjoy access to clean and safe water.
“If there is a nearby clean water source, why shouldn’t a Ugandan access it?” Nakut also pointed to incomplete rural water projects in Karamoja, saying infrastructure already intended to improve access has remained unfinished for years. She cited projects in Iriri, Lorangachora and Apitolim, which she said had remained incomplete about three years after their initiation.
Uganda’s water challenge is not simply one of expanding infrastructure. It is also one of project delivery, supervision, maintenance and value for money. Pakwach District Woman MP, Jane Avur Pacuto pointed out the irony of a constituency surrounded by water bodies while many residents remain without safe and clean water.
“Pakwach sits along two water bodies, but the water that we have available is not clean and safe,” she said. She singled out Panyimur Town Council, where she said communities are facing a serious burden of bilharzia associated with unsafe water.
Pacuto therefore called for greater public investment in the water sector. “I want to urge this Parliament to increase the budget for the water sector, so that women don’t suffer moving long kilometres to fetch water, and so that our people do not continuously suffer from waterborne diseases like bilharzia.”
She said many schools in Pakwach are sharing water points with surrounding communities, a situation she described as both unsafe and disruptive to school administration. “Most of our schools share water points with the communities. It is not only dangerous, but it makes administration of the schools very difficult, as children have to move in and out anytime.”
Budadiri East MP Julius Muntu Nakiyi, speaking as a civil engineer, shifted the debate from access to engineering capacity. His argument was that some of Uganda’s water infrastructure is being asked to serve populations far larger than those for which it was originally designed.
“In designing water systems, there are two factors: population and consumption per capita. You multiply the two, then you get volume,” Nakiyi explained. That calculation determines the size of storage tanks, pipe networks, gradients and flow rates. His concern is that some gravity-flow schemes may now be operating beyond their intended design capacity.
Ntoroko County MP Edison Rugumayo, said Ntoroko has one of the highest proportions of villages without access to safe water and described the situation as severe. “Ntoroko constitutes the highest proportion of villages without access to safe water,” Rugumayo told Parliament. “The situation is so terrible.”
The limited institutional water sources, he said, are overstretched. When they fail, pupils and students are forced to turn to streams and wells. “When they break down, you find pupils and students running to streams and wells to fetch water.”
Government reported that 76 solar-powered irrigation systems added approximately 384 hectares to irrigation capacity during the year, but national irrigation coverage increased only marginally from 0.78 per cent to 0.79 per cent below the National Development Plan IV target of 0.81 per cent.
Seven larger irrigation schemes under construction are expected to add another 9,200 hectares. Land acquisition, financing, ageing equipment and degradation of catchments remain constraints. The ministry’s environmental performance offers a more positive counterpoint. Uganda restored 26,709.6 hectares of degraded forests and landscapes during the financial year, exceeding the 20,000-hectare target.
But the gains come against continuing ecological pressure. The latest official forest-cover figure cited in the performance assessment is 12.7 per cent, while wetlands remain under pressure, with the ministry’s mapping showing a substantial portion degraded.
In Greater Kampala, annual average PM2.5 was reported at 13 micrograms per cubic metre, while Katwe in Makindye Division recorded 35.3 micrograms per cubic metre. Uganda’s annual standard cited in the assessment is 25 micrograms per cubic metre, while the World Health Organization’s annual guideline is substantially lower at 5 micrograms per cubic metre.
The National Environment Act reinforces that principle by recognising the right to a clean and healthy environment and providing mechanisms for preventing pollution, requiring environmental assessment and compelling restoration of degraded environments.
The ministry reported progress in environmental and water monitoring, including the commissioning of 11 automatic weather stations, bringing the national network to 234 stations across 104 districts. Water-use permit compliance reached 81 per cent, according to the ministry’s assessment, while wastewater-discharge compliance stood at only 49.2 per cent-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
