The government’s pound 112.5 million (about Shs548.4 billion) solar-powered irrigation and water-supply project has delivered 434 systems across the country. The remaining 253 systems are expected to be delivered under Phase II of the project.
The investment was intended to expand irrigation and improve access to water through solar-powered systems in a country where more than 96 percent of farming households depend on rain-fed agriculture, according to the 2024 Uganda Water Accounts report by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos).
The Development of Solar Powered Irrigation and Water Supply Systems Project, implemented by the Ministry of Water and Environment through Nexus Green Ltd, was initially designed to establish 920 systems across the country. The target was reduced to 687 after the contractor’s bid exceeded the financing initially approved by Parliament.
The ministry says Phase 1 of the project has brought about 2,000 acres under irrigation and benefited more than 905,000 people in various districts across the country, even as lawmakers on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) sought details on how many systems are commissioned and operational, and when the outstanding works will be completed under Phase II of the project.
LIST: HOW DISTRICTS SHARED SHS500B IRRIGATION PROJECTS
Last week, PAC chaired by Mr Patrick Nsamba Oshabe asked Ministry of Water officials to provide details on the project’s implementation record and site-selection decisions. Ministry officials had appeared before the committee to respond to the Auditor General’s queries.
From 920 systems to 687
The project was approved in September 2019, with Parliament initially authorising a loan of pound 101.8 million (about Shs496.6 billion) to finance the planned 920 systems. However, the bidding process produced a proposal from Nexus Green Ltd worth pound 279.6 million (Shs1.3 trillion), substantially exceeding the approved financing.
The government subsequently renegotiated the financing arrangement and reduced the project scope to 687 systems: 252 irrigation systems, 302 rural water-supply systems and 133 urban water-supply systems.
Parliament approved the revised financing arrangement on March 16, 2021. The revised UK Export Finance (UKEF) loan stood at pound 95.8m (Shs467.2b), while the government’s counterpart contribution increased to pound 16.6 million (Shs81.2 billion).
The changes were intended to align the project with the available financing, but the reduction also meant that fewer communities would receive the planned infrastructure than originally envisaged.
When contacted, Dr Alfred Okot Okidi, the Ministry of Water and Environment Permanent Secretary, dispelled legislators’ concerns and explained that the government returned to the UK government’s export credit agency to renegotiate the financing.
‘Initially, the plan was to construct 920 irrigation systems, but after the bidding process, the company contracted by the UK government asked for pound 279.6 million, yet the approved loan amount was only pound 101.8 million, with an additional government counterpart funding of pound 11.5 million,’ Dr Okidi said.
He added: ‘We returned to the UK government’s export credit agency and renegotiated the loan amount, and it came to pound 112.5 million. The UKEF loan was reduced to pound 95.8 million , and counterpart funding rose to pound 16.6 milliom.’
He said the revised financing and project scope were subsequently presented to Parliament by the Ministry of Finance for approval.
‘There were delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but we later resolved this and the project took off without further delay… All the approved funds were put to good use, and the projects can be traced on the ground. All the issues raised by the committee members and the Office of the Auditor General were responded to, and the list of the projects and the beneficiary districts attached,’ Dr Okidi told this publication last week.
2040 irrigation target
The Ugandan government has set a target of bringing 1.5 million hectares of farmland under irrigation by 2040. This ambitious goal aims to protect farmers from unreliable rainfall and boost agricultural productivity.
The government is shifting its approach from large-scale irrigation schemes to promoting smaller systems that can directly benefit individual farmers. Currently, only about 1.5 percent of irrigable land is covered, with 40,000 hectares added in the past five years.
Working alongside the private sector, the government sought to cut the red tape and established hundreds of irrigation schemes to support smallholder farmers across the country. In response to longstanding challenges – water access, financing, technology, and land – it has introduced new measures aimed at strengthening irrigation mainly in water-stressed districts across the country.
In pursuit of this strategic vision, the government, through the Ministry of Water, entered into a strategic partnership with UKEF to deploy solar-powered irrigation systems throughout the country.
The initiative was designed to address the impacts of climate change, reduce farmers’ dependence on unreliable rainfall patterns, and significantly increase agricultural productivity-with a particular focus on coffee-growing communities.
Delay explained
The project was initially scheduled for completion on July 26, 2024, but the deadline was extended to April 30, 2026.
The ministry has attributed the delays to Covid-19-related shipping disruptions and delays in government counterpart funding, which affected land acquisition for some facilities. It says the extension did not attract additional costs to the government.
‘The national and global lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic led to significant delays in shipment for long lead offshore materials in the first year of implementation. Additionally, the delayed counterpart financing affected the acquisition of land to house project facilities, especially for domestic water supply systems, causing delays in project implementation,’ Dr Okidi explained.
‘However, upon request, the contractor was given an extension to the revised completion date, at no additional cost to the government,’ he added.
Other implementation challenges included the need for additional boreholes, design changes and requests from communities to extend water-distribution networks beyond the original plans.
Dr Okidi stated that some urban systems were intended to replace diesel-powered water facilities, but most communities requested extensions to distribution networks, while rural communities sought longer pipelines to bring water closer to households.
‘This gave rise to larger systems with increased unit costs, increased coverage but with better per capita costs. As a result, the contract sum could accommodate up to 434 by April 30, 2026, comprising 203 irrigation systems, 148 rural water-supply systems and 83 urban water-supply systems,’ he said.
Dr Okidi said the 434 systems had been developed and handed over to beneficiary communities adding that the government had accounted for the money spent on the project. ‘Every penny has been accounted for, and all these projects exist in the communities,’ he said.
However, Mr Ronald Kato Kayizzi, the assistant commissioner for development in the ministry’s Water for Production Department, said commissioning was continuing and explained that the defects liability period allows the contractor to address problems identified after construction.
‘After the project is completed, there is six months, where if there are issues with the system, if it is not working well, if the users have experienced anything, the contractor can put it right, and they can commission,’ Mr Kayizzi said.
He said the commissioning exercise was taking time because the systems were spread across the country.
Adding, ‘These are separate projects scattered across the country. You can imagine the number, even if you are commissioning 10 every day.’
Audit concerns
The implementation record has also drawn scrutiny over whether some project sites had adequate water sources and the land required for construction.
Citing the Auditor General’s report for the financial year under review, Mbale City Industrial Division MP Karim Masaba told the committee that 122 systems had been completed at the time covered by the audit. Of these, 22 had been commissioned and only eight handed over to the umbrella organisation responsible for water supply and sanitation services.
He also questioned the feasibility assessments undertaken before sites were selected, citing audit findings that 162 sites had encountered failures associated with inadequate water sources and land-related challenges.
Mr Masaba questioned the suitability of some locations, asking: ‘How can you go and try to put a water plant somewhere where you know there is no water?’
He warned that weak oversight could undermine the investment, saying: ‘If we are not very strict and do proper accountability for this, the same people are going to mess up the loan that we’ve just passed.’
Responding to the concerns, Mr Kayizzi said the audit covered the project’s first year and that some circumstances had changed since then, saying, ‘That audit was looking at the first year of the project. So as we move ahead, some facts have changed.’
Mr Kayizzi cited land disputes and changes in ownership, as well as water-quality problems as examples of the challenges encountered at some sites.
‘Some are family land issues where one accepts the project to run, and in the due process someone comes up and objects and maybe they go to court; some are land wrangles which commonly interrupt who has the right to use particular land,’ he said.
Mr Kayizzi added that some sites had experienced water-quality problems.
Farmers see benefits
‘There could also be challenges when the water is salty. There was water initially available but later presented challenges and the quality is failing.’
Despite the implementation concerns, the project illustrates the potential of irrigation to protect farmers from prolonged dry spells.
In Kiwenjula Village, Bukomansimbi District, farmer Sarah Namutebi said irrigation infrastructure had enabled agricultural activities to continue during dry periods.
‘Even in dry seasons, farming and harvesting continues. Irrigation infrastructure has saved us, but those without it still face challenges,’ she said.
Mr Joseph Luwaga, the deputy Resident District Commissioner for Bukomansimbi, urged farmers who could afford it to adopt similar systems where government projects had not yet reached.
‘Farmers who are financially able in areas where such projects have not yet reached, copy this and establish irrigation. Government has demonstrated that it is possible to use irrigation to transform field earnings regardless of the season,’ he said.
The ministry also says the project has brought about 2,000 acres under irrigation for high-value crops, including coffee, fruits and vegetables, and benefited more than 905,000 people by improving access to water.
In some urban systems where diesel generators were replaced, energy costs reportedly fell by about 70 percent.
‘The distance households travel to water sources has been reduced from more than one kilometre to less than 500 meters in some communities. The provision of treated water is helping reduce exposure to waterborne diseases by replacing contaminated surface-water sources,’ Dr Okidi added.
Second phase
The scrutiny of the performance of the first project comes after Parliament approved a government request to borrow up to pound 168.9 million (823.4 billion) from UKEF and Citi Bank to finance Phase II of the Solar Powered Irrigation Systems Project aimed at boosting coffee production and strengthening climate resilience.
The loan, approved on June 10, 2026, during a sitting chaired by Speaker Jacob Marksons Oboth-Oboth, is intended to bolster the project, whose irrigation systems will cover about 4,768 acres and directly benefit an estimated 2,562 households.
Statistics from the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development show that Uganda has only 23,595 hectares under irrigation out of an estimated potential of 3.03 million hectares nationwide.
During the sitting, Parliament suspended Rule 162(2), (3) and (4) of its Rules of Procedure to allow consideration of the request without scrutiny by the Committee on National Economy and relevant sectoral committees, which had not yet been constituted then.
Invoking Rule 8 (1), the Speaker defended the move, saying the urgency of the matter justified immediate consideration.
‘We do not have the committees; that is a reality of fact, and this loan is as important as water itself,’ Speaker Oboth said.
Uganda’s latest available coffee export revenue is $2.1 billion (about Shs9.1 trillion) for the 12 months to August 2026, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries’ coffee export report.
The total export volume for coffee stood at 8.6 million 60-kilogramme bags exported between June 2025 and May 2026, marking a 16 percent increase compared to 7.4 million bags during the previous coffee year.
Tabling the motion, Finance Minister Henry Musasizi said the project will establish 427 solar-powered irrigation systems, down from the initially targeted 700 irrigation sites in coffee-growing areas across the country to fit within the available fiscal space, to cushion farmers against prolonged dry spells and climate change.
‘Currently, farmers are losing a lot of crops due to prolonged dry seasons, and this in turn affects their livelihoods,’ Mr Musasizi said.