Workers in Nairobi city centre queue for water from a Prisons Department lorry during a shortage in the city early last year. Photo/FILE
Kenya has secured Sh770 million to expand water infrastructure, a project that will ease perennial shortages and increase flow to Nairobi households.
A new 11 kilometre water supply pipe will be laid from Ngethu Dam through Ruiru to Nairobi.
The French Development Agency is funding the project set for completion in December.
Ngethu water treatment plant supplies 80 per cent of Nairobi residents with the commodity.
But the rising population in Nairobi and its environs is forcing water officials to come up with new ways of meeting the high demand.
Nairobi water demand stands at 750,000 cubic meters a day against a supply capacity of 530,000 cubic meters.
It is projected that the daily demand in 2020 will stand at 1.6 million cubic meters and climb to 2.2 million cubic meters by 2030.
The new pipes are expected to flow an additional 23 million litres of water to households.
A Chinese company, Zonal Engineering, has been awarded the contract to install the pipe and oversee its connection through Kiambu’s reservoir to Kirigiti in Kiambu to Gigiri.
“The funds will be paid in 30 years instalments, but we have a seven years grace period before we start servicing it,” said the director of water services, Lawrence Simitu.
However, the project faces hurdles as land owners and developers along the earmarked sites for expansion cry foul.
At least 200 developers will be affected. Some of the developers have filed complaints to the Kiambu East distict commissioner Albert Kimathi against the acquisition of the land.
Mr Kimathi said he will liaise with the relevant authorities to “set the records straight.” “But what I can assure is that the Government cannot be in the business of hurting its people. The project is for the benefit of the masses, but in the process we cannot hurt some in order to achieve our objectives,” he said.
He said the project will proceed as per the schedule. Kiambu business community said the exercise is infringing on property ownership rights since the contractor has routed the expansion of the pipes through private land and earmarking developments for demolition.
“The government has not engaged us on whether this is an onset of forceful acquisition of our properties. The contractor has not bothered to answer our queries,” said Mr Timothy Kimotho.
Area councillor Mwicigi Njoroge said the affected areas are high stake zones owing to their real estate value.
He says the least priced plot measuring 50 by 50 feet along the project’s route is currently going for Sh1.5 million, with a plot of the same measure in prime zones going for a high Sh10 million.
However, Athi Water Services Board chief executive Ms Rose Nyagah said the project will be fair and no deserving case will miss to be compensated.
“We are aware that some private land will be affected by the expansion project. But we are now laying out modalities of compensation for the land we will acquire,” she said.
Ms Nyagah said she has already started engaging government valuers and surveyors to give a report on the magnitude of private land to be affected.
“But what I can assure you is that already we have identified some developers along the mapped route for this project have encroached on our water way leave. Such will not be compensated,” she said.
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