Last week, the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company issued a public notice announcing an immediate 35 per cent reduction in water production at the Ngethu and Kigoro treatment plants following declining water levels at Thika/Ndakaini Dam.
Instructively, following the notice, one is left to wonder whether Nairobi, or indeed Kenya, suffers from a shortage of water or it suffers from a shortage of imagination, foresight and competent leadership in the management of this very important resource.
There is an enormous amount of human capital, technical expertise and institutional investment that ensure that Kenya can develop sufficient water resources for domestic consumption, industrial production, agriculture and economic development. As a country, we have hydrologists, engineers, environmental scientists, economists, planners and development specialists whose professional lives are dedicated to understanding how water can be harvested, stored, distributed and sustained. Yet, despite this abundance of expertise, we continue to approach water management as though it were a seasonal emergency rather than a permanent national development responsibility.
That Kenya has an entire ministry for water, sanitation and irrigation, is not by accident. This is an acknowledgement that water is so fundamental to national development that its management requires dedicated political leadership, institutional capacity and long term planning.
