Vendors make a killing selling water to thirsty Kajiado Town

• Some boreholes have dangerous chemicals but residents have no alternative sources

Water scarcity is probably the biggest headache for residents of Kajiado town, most of who are spending more money on it than food.

Ironically this scarcity has opened money making opportunities for many people in the town and the surrounding areas, who are now selling water for a living.

Trade in water is perhaps the most lucrative business in the town and has attracted both the rich and the ordinary folk.

Anyone with water to sell has a ready market as residents buy the commodity without complaining about the high prices or the source.

The affluent have drilled boreholes and bought tankers to transport water to thirsty individuals and institutions while the ordinary vendors are using hand carts, bicycles and wheelbarrows to transport it from the boreholes to homes at between Sh20 and Sh30 for a 20-litre container.

The town has five private boreholes and at least 20 water tankers of various sizes which are always supplying water to the growing population while hundreds of young people have invested in hand-carts and bicycles which they are using to transport water from the boreholes to consumers at a fee.

Selling charcoal

Enterprising Maasai women who previously earned a living by selling charcoal have abandoned that trade and are using their donkeys to ferry water from boreholes and shallow wells in the villages for sale in Kajiado town.

All the water vendors interviewed confirmed that indeed, they are making a fortune.

“One donkey carries 80 litres at a time,” Mama Sintaloi ene Kimiti, who supplies water to civil servants in government quarters and council houses at the district headquarters, said.

“With my three donkeys, I make Sh200 per trip,” she said. She is able to make at least five trips in a day.

She says that the water crisis in the town is a blessing for her and about 100 other women from her village who are today major suppliers to residents who cannot buy it in bulk either because they cannot afford or due to lack of storage facilities.

A mother of four, Ms Sintaloi says she is able to feed, clothe and educate her children without straining financially. Unlike previous years, she was able to pay school fees at once for her first born child, who is in form three at a local secondary school.

The other mothers who have joined the trade tell similar stories of how their lives have improved since the water crisis hit Kajiado town sometime last year.

The chairman of the Intinyika community, Mr Jonathan Manang’oi, says the women no longer struggle to pay the Sh200 monthly fee at the bore hole.

A cyclist who joined the water vending business in December last year told this writer that he was making an average of Sh1,000 a day. He is among those who get water from a bore hole in the town at Sh5 for a 20-litre container and later sell the same at between Sh20 and Sh25.

Our survey has revealed that most consumers in the town are, surprisingly, not bothered about the source of the water they use in their homes. Many said they had heard that water from some of the boreholes was not safe but still continued to buy it without enquiring about the source.

“It’s not that we don’t care about the quality of the water we are buying but do we have a choice?’’ a mother in Majengo residential area asked.

The residents are accusing the Olkejuado Water and Sewerage Company of inefficiency adding that they were better off before the much publicised reforms in the water sector.

They said the water sector was crowded with too many actors who were now pre-occupied with shifting blame as to who was responsible for the crisis.

Among the hardest hit by water stress are institutions, including the Kajiado Prison, which spends huge amounts of money on it. When the prison is not buying water in tankers, prisoners trek for about five kilometres to a river bed where they have dug a shallow well manually to collect water. They ferry the water to the prison using hand-carts.

Residents of the town have tried all means including public demonstrations to the water company offices but all their efforts have not helped the situation and the aggrieved “consumers” have resigned to a life of salty water of suspect quality.

At the Olkejuado Water and Sewerage Company, area manager, Mr Michael Kung’u, is on the defensive, accusing the Nolturesh Bulk Water Supply Company of hampering its operations by failing to supply his company with enough water.

While the town requires at least 1500 cubic metres of water daily, Mr Kung’u says that the Olkejuado Water and Sewerage Company receives an average of 2000 cubic metres in an entire month.  Mr Kung’u wondered how he is expected to distribute this negligible amount to all consumers. 

“Many are the days when company workers wake up to find there is no water to distribute,” he said. The company recently laid off 23 casual workers to save on operational costs.

Unable to understand the situation, residents of the town heap all sorts of accusations on the company. Mr Kung’u said he and his staff have been blamed and even called names by angry and frustrated residents.

The manager said he is, however, doing his best to distribute the little water he receives fairly, but it’s too little to have any impact. The company has zoned the town into 10 areas and only one small zone is served at a time whenever a little water is received. It takes the company several months before all the zones are served with water.

In the meantime, the private water merchants are doing booming business.

Unlike the retail vendors who confess that the water scarcity has turned into a blessing for them, owners of boreholes maintain that their earnings are modest. It’s not clear whether they are just being economical with the truth but the queues at their outlets tell a different story.

 Mr Ben Mollel, who owns Osotua bore hole on the outskirts of the town, denied that all the water vendors are making a killing, citing high overhead costs of running a borehole.

“I pay an average of Sh60,000 for electricity every month,” he said adding that he is happy to meet his initial objective of growing vegetables on his farm using water from the borehole. He also sells a minimum of 30,000 litres of water daily at Sh5 for a 20-litre container.

Making a fortune

Mollel said that those making a fortune were borehole owners with water tankers while those like him who are selling water in retail to hand cart and bicycle owners as well as women at a low cost did not make much profit. The middle men and women who buy water from him later sell the same to consumers at Sh25 per container.

He says his Osotua borehole is among the few in the town which have adhered to all requirements by the government. 

A number of boreholes are operating illegally but government officers who ought to order them to cease operations have their hands tied since they cannot do so without providing an alternative to the residents.

The District Public Health Officer, Mr James Malusha, whose department has tested water samples from some of the boreholes, says the results are worrying as the water was found to contain chemicals which are hazardous to human health.

Mr Malusha says he has written to the proprietors of the boreholes asking them to stop selling water for domestic use but to date, mothers can still be seen buying water for domestic use from these boreholes. (KNA)