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{
    "id": 1490871,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1490871/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 186,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Kisang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "CECM for Finance. However, at least, our Committee has been able to bring things to order, and now most of the companies are run well. We believe in the next audits, especially FY2024/2025 going forward, some of these books will have unqualified accounts because all of them were either qualified or disclaimer accounts. So, we have done a good job. I believe soon, we will see the benefits of this particular Committee in water service providers. What we want to urge our governors is to ensure they employ competent CEOs, and board members, so that they can drive the companies well, because those are the weaknesses that we saw. You heard the Senator for Wajir County say that some of the boreholes within the communities are run by an association that have even refused to cede management of these boreholes to the water companies. So, basically, they are run as a club, and they do not pay, they just maybe charge a flat rate from the water users, and sometimes the water is not even enough. What we also saw as a big and serious issue is non-revenue water. The standard loss is about 25 per cent, but the majority of the water service providers were way above, some even up to 72 per cent. I think it is only one or two counties; Nyeri County and one other county were below the recommended loss of 25 per cent. The others are at 70 or 60 per cent. So, it means you are losing more than three-quarters of the water that goes to the pipes. There are two types of losses. There is a physical loss because of the state of the pipes, and there is a commercial loss. The commercial loss is the water is already in the pipe, there are no losses through the pipes, but either they do not bill the water that has been used by the users, or cartels cut and divert the water and sell it directly to the water users. It is like what the Senator for Nairobi City County had said. The NWSC should not be getting any support from the Nairobi City County Government. It should be self- sufficient because we need water. If you go to Karen, almost every day, pipes burst everywhere and they do not have any means to detect if there are any leakages within the pipeline or not. So, governors have shouldered that. If county governments were not there most of these water service providers basically would have closed. This is because they all get support from the counties in terms of ensuring they can pay salaries and electricity bills. Otherwise, Kenya Power would have closed most of them a long time ago. It is also important that we encourage them to get smart meters. They need to get detectors so that if there are leakages, they are detected quickly. Recently, I think they partnered also with the National Police Service (NPS), where we have water policing. The water police officers are supposed to help the water service providers to detect where there are illegal connections so that they do not lose water. We have nine regional bodies, but some of these regional water agencies take loans on behalf of water service providers, and the water service providers do not know. They just find there is a loan yet they were not involved, they did not negotiate and a feasibility study of the water projects was not done through them. So, they just see loans and people coming to the regions where there is a project that is coming up. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}