The County department of Water Services has renewed its focus on ‘Lipa Maji’ as a strategy to create funds for undertaking routine repair of boreholes and ensure sustainable access to water supply.
County executive committee member for water services Faith Aletea said that water supply was heavily reliant on systems susceptible to breakdowns, calling for round-the-clock maintenance and the need to foot the cost by both the Government and the water users.
“When we ask the public to pay for their water, we intend to use the money to fund maintenance costs and ensure uninterrupted use of the water infrastructure. This is because it is no longer sustainable for the Government to keep funding the maintenance cost,” CEC Aletea said.
Speaking at Lokichoggio after chairing a Water partner’s forum, CEC Aletia explained that the County’s role was to fund the initial establishment cost of water infrastructure while the water users had a duty to pay up for maintenance and operations costs.
CEC Aletea said the County and partners had established water access infrastructure at Longolemwar, Kaaleng, and Merikuka-Nalemsekom in the last two weeks with the expectation that the water users would pay up for maintenance and operations costs for sustainable utilization of the projects.
“At Kaaleng and Longolemwar, we went further to unveil a plaque in which “Kulipa Maji no Kujitegemea” was inscribed. This is just to remind the water users of their obligation,” CEC Aletea said.
Chief Officer for Water Services David Maraka said that the message had been communicated to the water user’s associations who were expected to pass the same to the public.
“We have even gone further to sensitize the water users’ associations of the water infrastructure insurance scheme by the Dioceses of Lodwar. Our expectation is that they will enroll to benefit from professional input by expert maintenance staff,” Chief Officer Maraka said.
The Chief Officer added that non-payment of the maintenance costs by the community would result in lost abstraction hours in the event of breakdowns and delays in responding.
By Peter Gitonga
