Assessment of goundwater investigations and borehole drilling capacity in Uganda

The objective of the study is to assess the groundwater investigation, drilling and supervision capacity in Uganda, both in term of available equipment as well as in technical staff capacity and to recommend measures to enhance this capacity both in terms of quality of works as well as in terms of cost efficiency. This was done through desk studies and key interviews with stakeholders, and also the preparation, distribution and analysis of questionnaires to all stakeholders in the sector, comprising of drilling companies, individual consultants and consultancy companies in geophysical siting, drilling supervision and contract management, including also follow up meetings to drilling companies. The collected information was discussed in a workshop with sector actors. The report describes the legislative and institutional framework of the sector. DWRM regulates the water drilling in Uganda. The Directorate licenses the drilling contractors and issues permits for drilling and water abstraction, and collects data for the national groundwater database. Every year, between 1,000 and 1,500 boreholes are drilled in Uganda. Currently applied siting as well as drilling contract formats are mostly no-water-no-pay contracts rather than BoQ contracts, which ultimately leads to lesser quality boreholes. Borehole drilling contracts by District Local Governments, constituting the largest fraction are procured after prequalification, whereas other actors also apply selected bidding or open bidding. The Sector Investment Plan (SIP) has studied various targeted service levels (access to safe water) based on selected combinations of water supply options. Combining the SIP information, current borehole costs and combined GoU / NGO funding capacity, it follows that there will be an increasing funding gap for borehole drilling. [authors abstract]