Philip Oyamo, Project Director, WSUP Advisory Uganda
Project Director, WSUP Advisory, Uganda
Published on: 28/11/2024
Building universal services is a complex task. It requires professional service providers to ensure safe sustainable water and meet demand, which in turn requires investment. Philip Oyamo has been supporting Mid-Western Umbrella for Water and Sanitation to be a professional and well performing government-led utility.
“My name is Philip Oyamo, I'm the Project Director, for WSUP Advisory, in Uganda. I'm leading all our interventions in Midwest and in Central Umbrella.
Our work with Mid-Western Umbrella has been on supporting them to be a professional and well-performing utility, covering all aspects of utility management, from governance, commercial aspects, technical aspects, finance and accounting, and customer service. All the factors that ensure water is delivered safely to the residents that require it.
We sit and analyse together. It’s a mutual relationship, whereby there's no teacher and student. We identify the challenge, and we work together towards addressing it. We provide support, so that all the planning and interventions align towards the vision and the mission of the institution.
In terms of governance, we supported the formation of the Mid-Western Umbrella Board of Directors. For an institution to be well performing, it must have an oversight body that can supervise management. It’s the Board that approves policies and reviews management reports.
When we started working with Umbrella almost five years ago, the institution didn’t have any system for finance and accounting. Records were kept on a single-entry bookkeeping. It was difficult to track revenue, the money they receive from customers—or expenses - what they paid to suppliers and contractors.
Over the years, we’ve moved from single entry bookkeeping to double-entry bookkeeping, which brought order, and controls. Now we’ve even gone a step further and the Umbrella has now adopted a finance and accounting system, that is Sage 200 [Business Management Software]. Financial reporting is now more efficient.
We've provided technical support in multiple areas. We supported the construction of mini water treatment plants, one in Bundibugyo, and the other in Pohe. We also helped set up and equipped mini laboratories in the field.
Previously the Umbrella used to do two water quality tests per scheme, per year. With the support of WSUP with funding from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and other development partners, the Umbrella has increased frequency and is meeting the requirement as per the performance contract they signed with the Ministry of Water and Environment. They are now meeting over 90% of water quality efficiency.
So, there is more testing, there's reporting and there is use of those reports to make management decisions.
The Umbrella is set up in such a way that its schemes are gazetted to its management. There are some schemes which were constructed many years ago, and others more recently constructed. They're in different conditions. Some have very poor-quality water; some have very poor functionality. We've worked in what we call the Model Areas, such as in Bundibugyo, areas of Kibale and the areas of Kassanda, to bring in the necessary components, the air valves and fittings, to ensure that these schemes operate in a hydraulically optimum manner. That guarantees supply reaches the customers as and when they require.
For an institution that came into being five years ago, there was no structured customer service management. Through our interactions, we now have a Customer Charter that has promises towards customers. It addresses issues of connection, complaints, affordability of bills, equity (in terms of supply) and also quality. So that component has really enhanced how the customers experience services being provided by the Umbrella.
The Umbrella covers approximately 16 districts, and over 65 schemes. Their area of operation is widely spread and yet all of them need to be managed. In order to bring efficiency in management, we developed the Area Performance Management Framework. The framework decentralises management to a lower level, the area level.
An area is basically an amalgamation of between three to nine schemes. So, within that structure an Area Manager together with his or her team are able to provide the necessary support, and respond to customer issues, network challenges, and ensure water supply is continuous, and the customer enjoys services.
From the time that we started working with the Umbrellas, we've managed to realise tremendous growth. This growth is due to the reliable and motivated workforce they have, and sound management. They're always ready to listen and work with us. It is through this empathetic working relationship that we have realised this growth. Four years ago, billing was about100 million (UGX) per month, but currently the Umbrella is billing over 300 million (UGX).
Midwest Umbrella is targeting rural growth centres and towns. The utility is set-up as a pro-poor institution. They are supposed to ensure the people in the bottom two wealth quintiles enjoy the same water services as the middle-and high-income areas. For an institution to be able to provide this, it has to perform optimally. That means, that there must be good management of financial resources, good governance to provide oversight and good infrastructure, which is well maintained and expanded based on population growth.
If you look at their strategic plan, the foci has been “Umbrella for the Customer.” They really want their customers to be happy. For a customer to be happy, you must be able to provide services in a more continuous manner. This means that the resources that you have, must match the needs and the demands. That is why these broad areas of focus: from governance, commercial, technical, to customer service, are all geared towards ensuring that the primary customers, the least wealthy being our main priority, can enjoy quality yet affordable and sustainable services.
Water has been my passion, for many years. Even when I was still in college. I'm a water engineer by training. My motivation is seeing people, especially the least wealthy, enjoying safe water at their doorstep. Moving away from going to lakes or rivers or walking long distances to go get water from a communal point.
The convenience of such access comes with a huge ripple effect. Safety of women and girls for instance, as walking to the river exposes them to many dangers. The convenience of getting the service when and where you want it, opposed to having to wait for someone to open a public point of access. The health benefits that are accrued from accessing good quality water. These things motivate me, give me energy to share my experience, expertise and to reach a wider coverage.
Safe water means less money being spent on health care. So, there are less rates of people falling sick, parents or care givers have enough money to invest in other things. Children going to school can enjoy continuous learning, without being absent from being ill, so safe water in general means that the community will develop in a healthy and safe environment.
Our work with Midwestern Umbrella over the years has been quite encouraging. We are now looking at other avenues for them to expand their service coverage. We are shifting in focus, and we are happy that both the Ministry of Water and Environment and the Midwestern Umbrella are supportive. It is because of this that we are really hopeful, and we know that will be able to reach more customers within this service area sooner than later."
Mid-Western Umbrella is one of the entities that is supported through WSUP Advisory under the Conrad N. Hilton Safe Water Initiative. This initiative focuses on systems strengthening and service delivery to ensure reliable and safely managed water to one million people in low-income households, health facilities and schools in Ethiopia, Ghana and Uganda.
As part of its five-year strategic plan, Conrad N. Hilton commissioned a review of its investments and approaches in the target geographies. The primary aim of the review was to investigate the relevance, effectiveness and sustainability of different Service Delivery Models (SDM), including community-based safe water management, publicly owned water utilities and private-sector approaches such as Safe Water Enterprises (SWE).
In 2023, as part of the review, IRC produced on behalf of Aguaconsult Ltd and for the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation the film 'In service to everyone'. For this film, IRC's Dechan Dalrymple and Naomi Kabarungi, interviewed service providers and users, including Philip Oyamo in August 2023. This article is an adaptation and summarised version of the full interview.