Sustaining High Performing Public Enterprises – Case study of National Water and Sewerage Corporation, Uganda, Silver Mugisha
Silver’s book tells the story of NWSC as, with his leadership and his excellent senior colleagues, they built upon the key innovations that William Muhairwe had introduced – in particular, the internal delegated management contract. That is making ‘mini-MDs’ of every area manager – giving responsibility and authority and, most importantly, the financial tools to manage.
The key results achieved are shown dramatically on page 11 – in 2017 the number of towns served has risen from 23 to 218 (12 towns in 1998 when my involvement ended in the capacity-building element of the Second World Bank Water Project – and William became MD following the efforts of Hilary Onek). Total connections were then (am sure have grown significantly again in the two years following this data) 530,000, up from 50k in 2018, new connections PER YEAR had reached a massive 40k, Bill collection efficiency up from 60% to 93%, NRW down from 60% to 31% and operating surplus from minus 8billion USH to plus 71billion. Noting that this has been achieved whilst absorbing the costs and management challenges of so many more small towns.
A must read indeed! Copies shared with Guma Valley Executive Management and promoted to many people at the IRC Symposium …. Congratulations Silver and colleagues. I now rank all other utilities as to where they are in ‘NWSC years’ ……. One possibly now being in ‘1990’ in NWSC terms.