Water Service Providers Record Improvement in Performance
The Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) has released the 15th issue of IMPACT Report Monday 19th June, 2023 at Sarova Whitesands Hotel, Mombasa. The report was unveiled by Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Water Sanitation and Irrigation Hon. Alice Wahome.
This edition of IMPACT covers the period 2021/22 and analyses performance of 92 (88 public and 4 private) Water Service Providers and 47 Counties. It also presents the overall situation of water coverage at the county level by incorporating data collected on small scale water service providers in the rural and underserved areas. The report is meant to give feedback to the public on how the water services sector is performing, with a view of holding to account institutions charged with service delivery.
Performance analysis is based on nine Key Performance Indicators. These are Water Coverage, Water Quality, Hours of Supply, Non-Revenue Water, Metering, Staff Productivity, Revenue Collection Efficiency, Personnel expenditure as a % of O+M cost and O&M Cost-coverage.
The report shows the average Water Coverage was 62% for piped water systems in the regulated utilities, which is an improvement of 2 percentage points from 2020/21 where coverage was 60%. In 2021/22, the population in the entire service area of regulated utilities was 26.7 million out of the total national population of 49.4 million, meaning 54.1% of the population and a decrease of 0.2 percentage points from the figure of 54.3%, which was reported in the previous period. The utilities have shown a consistent growth in water coverage in a span of three years.
Further, the national average for Drinking Water Quality was 95%. This is an improvement of 3 percentage points from the previous period. Improvement was noted in all the size categories. Water safety is key in overall satisfaction of consumers.
Overall sanitation for the period remained constant at 93%. This stands for populations who have access to facilities which include flush or pour-flush to piped sewer systems, septic tanks, ventilated improved pit latrines and traditional pit latrines (with a squatting slab). However, Sewered Sanitation Coverage stagnated at 16% in the regulated WSPs, despite the number of people served increasing by 5.7%. The average number of people served per connection increased from 9.4 in 2019/20 to 12.8 in the current period. Maintaining the trajectory will drive the sector towards attaining universal coverage by 2030.
According to the Water Act 2016, WASREB is mandated to report to the public annually to promote transparency and accountability in the sector.
Access the Report and the List of Awards here: http://bitly.ws/JbRk