Water: Some Thoughts on a Wet Subject
This year's water congress ends today in Nairobi. Like its predecessor in 2013, it has been very well attended and was even opened by HE President Uhuru Kenyatta.
This 3rd International Water Association’s Congress was held in October 2013 right here in Nairobi. The first Congress on water was held in Montreal, Canada in 2010 while second was held in Busan, Korea in 2012. This Nairobi Congress was attended by delegates from 90 countries and had more than 1,000 delegates and occupied most of the exhibition space at KICC.
This year’s congress was important to Kenya for several reasons. One, it came at a time when some of our best "friends" were issuing travel advisories telling their citizens not to travel to Kenya because the country had become so unsafe that the governments of those countries could not guarantee the security of those who dared to travel to that country, i.e., Kenya.
Two, it came at a time when the Ministry in charge of Water was launching its new Policy Document on Water and the Water Bill of 2013. Significantly, both the Congress and the water policy launch were presided over by the same person, viz., Cabinet Secretary, Prof. Judi Wakhungu. In both instances, she went to great lengths to underscore the impor- tance of water in the economic development of this country and indeed the entire region. She also touched upon the centrality of water in our 2010 Constitution emphasizing that water is both a constitutional right and also a national resource. Both have implications for management of that resource.
The first time I heard Prof. Wakhungu speak about water was during the “unveiling” at KSMS of the report by UNESCO, et. al., regarding the vast quantities of water found deep underground in the arid Turkana County. By pure chance, I was on Nation TV at 7.00 am on the same day talking about my pet subject - the Ndakaini Marathon - when the subject of water availability in Kenya was raised by a caller from Mombasa. The an-
swer I gave - it is on record - was that, contrary to popular belief, Kenya is not a “water deficient” country but, rather, a country that lacks effective mechanisms for managing its three main water sources: surface runoffs (rivers and lakes), shallow aquifers (wells and boreholes) and deep underground reservoirs. And I gave specific examples.
An Unexpected Supporter
During the last Nairobi ASK Agricultural Show, I was listening to a morning vernacular programme on water and, in the course of it, the Israeli Ambassador to Kenya(or some such senior official) was asked about the same question(in English, of course) and his reply was almost a carbon copy of mine: that what we lack in Kenya is the ability to manage the millions of gallons of rainwater that liberally falls twice a year in the central plains and which we casually allow to run off in a vain attempt “to desalinate the Indian Ocean”.
So, you will ask, where does all this take us? This, in fact, is what the Water Congress was all about and it is the third point I want to make. In short, the issue at the Congress was that when faced with rapid rural-urban migrations(according to Governor Kidero during the same Con- gress, Nairobi’s current day-time population of 5 million was expected to reach 24 million by 2100), there must be a corresponding increase in what I would like to euphemistically call “rural-urban water migration” to supplement the little the cities can collect from their roof-tops and concrete runoffs.
This then takes me to the heart of the matter. In the case of Nairobi and Mombasa (the two principal users of Central Kenya waters – a similar case can be made for users in the western part of Kenya - the question that needs to be addressed is where and how their respective water supplies can be increased in order to quench the ever-increasing thirst of the city residents.
The theme of the 2013 Congress was hence very apt: “Catalysing Urban Water Transitions”. In case we have forgotten, a catalyst is defined in Oxford English Dictionary as “something that causes activity between two or more persons or forces without itself being affected". In other
words, it is no longer business as usual for the users of water and I give two illustrations below.
The Case of Nairobi
Nairobi has four sources of water: Kikuyu Springs(built in the 1920s and supplies 1% of Nairobi water needs), Ruiru Dam (1935, 4%), Sasumua Dam(1945, 11%) and Ndakaini Dam(1990s, 85%). The daily demand for Nairobi in 2013 was estimated to be 650,000 cubic metres against a maximum supply of 500,000. For those of you familiar with Economics 101, this largely explains the existence of water bowser cartels of Dagoretti Corner.
Unfortunately, this is not the end of the story. Out of the water that is extracted from the four sources above, only 60% of it reaches the consumer. The balance, a massive 40%, is “lost” when it reaches the supply chain in Nairobi and is cavalierly referred to as “non-revenue water”(NRW, another acronym for you). Given that Nairobi Water Company the water service provider is currently generating about Sh. 6 billion in revenue, simple arithmetic shows that it could easily make Sh. 8 billion by reducing its NRW from 40% to 20% - a gain of Sh. 2 billion with only a marginal increase in costs. The corresponding benefits from the more efficient distribution could be used to either:
(a) reduce the unit cost of water to Nairobi consumers;
(b) pass a percentage of the benefits to catchment area communities;
(c) come up with an equitable sharing of the attendant revenue benefits between the two groups (there are other options but for now let us stick to those three).
Which brings me to the cardinal point as explicated by the policy makers: that water being national asset CANNOT BE SOLD by one county to another. The details of what constitutes a sale in commercial terms is a matter of discussion in a separate forum but, for now, there is a fundamental issue in economics and it is this: If you do not charge someone for the use of what may be known as a “free” good (constitutionally or otherwise), there is likely to be a perverse outcome – the user will not
appreciate it and will, in all likelihood, abuse or misuse it. A logical solution in the case of water is to put in place an extraction, or passage charge. The first is applicable for "source" counties while the second is appropriate for counties where the conduits are located (for those so inclined, this issue is extensively discussed by Elinor Ostrom, a recent Nobel Prize Winner in Economics whose research work was partly done here albeit in Kenya on a different subject).
The Case of Mombasa
Unlike Nairobi, Mombasa is almost totally lacking in own water sources (you can’t even sink a borehole on the Island). The three sources of water for Mombasa are Kilifi, Kwale and the Mzima Springs located hundreds of kilometres away in Amboseli Game Reserve. Mombasa is a chronically water deficient city but for different reasons from Nairobi.
The main source, Mzima Springs, was constructed many years ago when someone stumbled upon an underground fresh water exit from Mt. Kilimanjaro. When they built the water pipeline to Mombasa, they made provision for two other pipelines to be connected as and when demand for water in Mombasa rose to economically justifiable levels. To-date, the second pipeline connection has not happened but not due to what you might think. The trouble is that, like Nairobi, there are water barons who simply do not want the situation to improve and have even gone to the extent of causing leaks and blockages on the main supply lines. The outcome is left to your imagination.
A Way Forward
As can be seen from these two illustrations, the issue of water is not as simplistic as saying that you cannot charge for a constitutionally guaranteed national resource. Man has a way of making a monkey of those who would like to think simplistically. It is time we all got together as stakeholders and asked ourselves if there are better or optimal/equitable ways of dealing with this touchy problem.
I am clear in my own mind about the way out but I do not want to pre-empt what the experts may have as better solutions. I only ask that you consider this write up as a catalyst for provoking your thinking even as you read the Water Policy document and the Water Bill which are available in the public domain.
Now that we have a new Cabinet Secretary for Water and Irrigation, Hon. Eugene Wamalwa, I hope he will use his extensive knowledge of this commodity and his obvious energy to tackle this important subject for once and for all. It is a subject that is close to every Kenyan's heart but, sadly, continues to receive unfocussed attention.
Like one of my favourite poets wrote many years ago: “So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be..” (Lord Alfred Tennyson).
My prayer is that we look at this subject not merely as a matter for arbi- tration between respective sets of Governors or members of their county assemblies on how to share this commodity but as a primary aspect in the equitable allocation of national resources.
There is obviously a lot more at stake but, for now, just think about it.
JH Kimura,
October 2016.
As I look back, I have been talking about this wet subject and making proposals on the way for 30 years. Clearly, either no one is listening or, if they are, there is intention of doing anything long term about it. It is all short-termism or politicisation.
The absurdity of the whole situation is that when Ndakaini dam is low, me and my people of Ndakaini are accused of stealing the water. When the dam is full to overflowing, we are accused of sabotaging water-flow to Nairobi by letting it spill over.
Either way, we cannot win: damned if you do, damned if you don’t!
Like someone said in the book of Hosea: “My people die because of lack of knowledge”. In our case, the knowledge of what to do is there but of what use is it if you do not want to use it?