Nairobi, Kilifi counties top in piped water coverage

Residents queue for water at Kilifi Mariakani Water and Sewerage company main offices in Kilifi town. PHOTO | NMG

Kilifi County has the highest proportion of residents that can be served by piped water out of all counties outside of the capital city Nairobi, according to a new report.

A performance report of Kenya’s water services sector released by the Water Services Regulatory Board (Wasreb) shows some 1.1 million residents of Kilifi could access piped water as at June 2022.

This translates to water coverage of 73 percent of the county’s population, the highest rate of any county besides Nairobi. The capital has 4 million residents with water access, translating to 86 percent of the city’s population.

Read: Nairobi water prices to rise by up to 40 percent

Murang’a emerged third with 767,825 or 71 percent of its population connected to piped water followed by Kiambu and Embu counties which closed the top five counties with water coverage rates of 70 percent and 63 percent respectively.

“During the period under review, 54.1 percent of the national population lived in areas served by regulated utilities. Nairobi County led in water coverage at 86 percent, which was a two-percentage point drop from 88 percent during the previous reporting period,” said Wasreb.

West Pokot emerged as the county with the least proportion of residents who have piped water connections. The county has 14,988 residents who have access to piped water, translating to just two percent of its population.

Wajir, which has 19,726 residents with water connections was second last while Narok was third last with 49,029 residents or four percent of its population having water coverage.

About 62 percent of Kenya’s population lives in areas where they can access water connections, which means the country is facing a tight race against time to achieve universal water coverage by 2030.

According to Wasreb, the area covered by water service providers (WSPs) is growing at a faster rate of 5.1 percent annually compared to an annual population growth rate of 2.9 percent.

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“The increase in population served has not been in tandem with the amount of water available for distribution, which decreased by 4.9 percent,” said the water regulator.

“The implication being a decline in the quality of service expressed in terms of per capita water availability which decreased from 30l/c/d to 28l/c/d.”

The water sector faces major challenges, particularly the increase in non-revenue water, that is water leakages, which hit 45 percent in the year to June 2022 translating to Sh11.2 billion loss.

“This is a very unfavourable situation that starves utilities of the much-needed resources required to expand access,” said Wasreb.

Read: Illegal connections deny water firms Sh8.9bn annually

This comes even as water utilities continue to struggle financially due to the relatively low water charges despite the high costs of operations and maintenance that the WSPs face.

President William Ruto has mulled privatising water supply as part of efforts to attract private capital to the sector to accelerate universal water access.

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