The integration of foreign populations into Uganda's security apparatus is not unprecedented. Colonial security systems relied heavily on foreigners to suppress local populations. This pattern was perpetuated under Idi Amin, whose security forces included refugees, and under Obote, whose apparatus similarly relied on non-Ugandans (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2022).

The plant running today is not the 1968 original. The New Goreangab Reclamation Plant was finished in 2002. Veolia puts its daily output at 21,000 cubic metres, and the whole trip from sewer to tap takes about a day, serving a city of around 350,000 people.