Rwanda to build US $8M sewage sludge treatment plant

A US $8M sewage sludge treatment plant is set to be developed in the city of Kigali in Rwanda. The project follows a signed agreement between the Water and Sanitation Company (WASAC) with the Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC).

The plant will be built in Kabuga, in the Kicukiro district. The move to build a plant with a capacity of 500 m3 aims to meet the sanitation needs of the city of Kigali. WASAC plans to conduct a feasibility study.

The dried sludge will be used as fertiliser for agriculture. The installation should be operational within three years. This sanitation project is being carried out within the framework of the Lake Victoria Integrated Water Resources Management Programme (LV-IWRM).

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LV-IWRM programme

The regional LV-IWRM programme covers the countries in the Lake Victoria basin, including Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda. With this programme, LVBC aims to reduce the pollution of Lake Victoria. The faecal matter collected in the city of Kigali is dumped by dump trucks at the Nduba dump. The risk of pollution is great, especially for the 351 km long Kagera River, which is one of the tributaries of Lake Victoria.

This pollution causes the proliferation of water hyacinth, which suffocates fish and reduces the navigability of the largest lake on the African continent. Launched in 2020, the LV-IWRM programme will clean up Lake Victoria by building new wastewater treatment plants in the town of Mwanza in Tanzania and improving wastewater collection in Kisumu, Kenya.

The programme is being implemented with funding from the European Union (EU) and the German development agency Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). The LV-IWRM programme is crucial because Lake Victoria supports more than 45 million people in its basin.