NWSC MD Eng Dr. Silver Mugisha addressing journalists and influencers at the media roundtable on August 14, 2026.
On August 14, 2026, the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) convened a media roundtable with journalists and influencers. The meeting took place at the Corporation’s Resource Centre in Bugolobi, Kampala. Before the roundtable, influencers were taken to the field to document NWSC’s work over the years. Among the issues highlighted is that customer connections have grown to over 1,060,000, up from 300,000. In terms of infrastructure, the total water network length has expanded from 6,000 kilometers to 25,000 kilometers. Its assets have also grown to a value of Shs 5 trillion, while its financial performance has risen from Shs 40 billion to Shs 197 billion. To date, NWSC serves a population of 22 million people spread across 290 towns.
Interestingly, the timing of the roundtable raised questions. For some time, the corporation had halted media engagement. This particular one was prompted by media reports that there was a security probe into corruption at the corporation.
Speaking at the roundtable, NWSC MD Eng. Dr. Silver Mugisha said NWSC supports the fight against corruption. He, however, said that “advocacy must be driven by genuine public interest rather than localized political manipulation.”
“The corporation welcomes objective, fact-based feedback, but condemns coordinated bad-faith rants that seek to demoralize the public servants dedicating their lives to national development,” said Mugisha.
According to Mugisha, the corporation has made it difficult for corruption to eat up NWSC. For instance, he said that most systems have been digitized “to streamline everyday administrative and management workflows.”
He said that “this transition had permanently lowered paperwork, minimized bureaucratic delays, and enhanced corporate oversight.” He also revealed that public funds are spent on actual and quantifiable work.
But although Mugisha spoke about digitization, his team later handed cash to every attendee. There were over 250 attendees. Each left with at least Shs 250,000.
Analysts suggest that with the cash package and the digitization speech, Mugisha spoke water and drank wine. For a public entity to pay people in cash means that government funds are distributed as physical banknotes or coins rather than through trackable digital channels like direct bank deposits or electronic mobile money. The implications may be that physical cash bypasses electronic oversight, making it easy to create “ghost workers” or siphon public funds into private pockets, while, without an automatic digital paper trail, audits become difficult, and verifying whether the intended recipient actually received the exact funds is nearly impossible.
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