Kilifi County has connected at least 466,406 people to water access since the onset of devolution,” Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi has said. – By Ramadhan Kambi.
In a speech read on his behalf by Deputy Governor Gideon Saburi during the launch of the Strategic Plan for Malindi Water and Sewerage Company (MAWASCO) and City Wide Sanitation Plan, in Malindi, Governor Kingi said the county has invested heavily in the extension of water infrastructure to ensure we provide clean, safe, accessible and affordable water to Kilifians.
“So far, more than Sh1.5 Billion has been pumped into over 250 different water projects across the County and this has directly benefitted an additional 466,406 people who had no access to water and sanitation before devolution set in,” the Governor said.
He said that with piped water as the safest way of availing water to the residents of Kilifi, the county has so far put in place an additional 674Km of water supply network.
Governor Kingi added that his administration is currently fast tracking water supply initiatives through a structured Master Plan, adding that piped water supply coverage has greatly improved from 48 per cent in 2014 to over 70 per cent today.
“In just five years, we have managed to reduce the average distance to the nearest water source has reduced from 5Km (CIDP) to 3.5Km. Our aim is to reduce this distance to 1.5Km between water sources,” he added.
The Malindi Water and Sewerage Company (MAWASCO) Strategic Plan 2019-2024 is expected to address the water scarcity problem that the people of Malindi and Magarini have faced for many decades.
“My administration will continue to work closely with MAWASCO to ensure we enhance construction of water supply pipelines as well as sanitation in the remote parts of the County and ensure investment in water storage facilities to cushion residents from losses arising from poor storage,” the Govenror said.
On the launch of the City Wide Sanitation Plan, the county boss said it will provide a blue print to trigger action to prioritise and realise our Constitutional mandate envisaged in Article 43 of the Constitution 2010 whose aspirations is to ensure all our citizens have access to reasonable standards of sanitation.
“Malindi Water and Sewerage Company remains our special purpose vehicle in effectuating this dream and they have full and undivided support from my Government. The Sanitation plan envisages to transform the urban centres of Malindi and Watamu and improve sanitation from the current coverage of 27 per cent to 58 per cent by the year 2024.
To effectuate these two plans the county will allocate resources to support implementation of some components of the plan in the next financial year. Nonetheless, this is not adequate to realise our dream and I therefore appeal to our development partners to allocate more resources to enable us accelerate realization of SDG No. 6 to provide access to our populace to safe water and safely managed sanitation,” he said.
