By Namubiru Hanifah
Through a series of meetings aimed at enhancing business growth, the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) has been actively collaborating with leading telecommunications companies MTN Uganda and Airtel Uganda. These discussions focus on leveraging mobile payment platforms to improve bill collection processes and enhance customer experience.
On September 19th, 2024, NWSC officials, led by the General Manager Kampala Water, Eng. Mahmood Lutaya, met with the MTN MoMo team during which, Eng. Lutaaya acknowledged MTN MoMo’s key role in facilitating water bill payments, contributing 21% of NWSC’s monthly collections which compelled his proposal of a series of initiatives aimed at maximizing its potential, particularly with an active customer base of 950,000 accounts and over UGX120 billion in outstanding bills.
One proposal led to more, and a key outcome from the meeting was the idea to launch a joint campaign to recover the overdue payments, scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2024. Catered for by MTN, this initiative will utilize SMS notifications to remind customers with outstanding balances, significantly boosting collection efforts. Additionally, a Christmas campaign offering rewards for timely bill payments was proposed, as a way to fuel goodwill among customers during the festive season.
In conjunction with these efforts, NWSC emphasized the necessity of digitizing payments for its 50,000 prepaid-meter water points across the country. They proposed trade visits to assess MTN MoMo agent locations for potential conversion into authorized payment points, streamlining payment processes for customers.
On September 26th, 2024, Eng. Lutaaya led his team to engage with yet another telecom giant, Airtel Uganda. Received by the Managing Director for Airtel Commerce, Japhet Aritho, at Airtel House, the meeting centered on exploring synergies between NWSC and Airtel to leverage their respective platforms for business growth, a rather good call as Eng. Lutaya highlighted Airtel as NWSC’s second-highest revenue-collecting partner, contributing 15% of total collections. He noted that collections via Airtel Money had surged from UGX37 million in 2012 to UGX 87.7 billion in 2024, with significant customer engagement seen in recent months.
However, Eng. Lutaya raised concerns about challenges faced with Airtel payments, including delays in receiving customer statements and difficulties in validating details online. In response to this, both teams agreed on the need to address these challenges, with plans to review the online receipting process and use Airtel’s SMS platform to encourage timely payments.
Looking ahead, both NWSC and Airtel are planning a follow-up meeting to finalize actionable steps aimed at mutual business growth.
The parties further discussed Airtel’s and MTN’s possible participation in the Africa Water and Sanitation Congress (AfWASA) set for 2025, which will draw over 1,000 international delegates to Uganda.
Plans for follow-up meetings are in the pipeline to finalize these discussions and move forward with actionable steps to drive mutual business growth.
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