How County is Dealing with Perennial Water Shortage 2 years of Devolution

Mandera County is alive to the fact that no single sector can realize any meaningful growth without adequate water supply. Despite all effort and investment in various other sectors, tapping water will be a must.

Governor Ali Roba says they are working to turn pastoralism from a way of life to a sustainable economic activity. To achieve this, access to clean water all year round is critical. “We will put a stop to this perennial water shortage in the county. Technology is available to help us find water in a place as semi-arid as Mandera, and our investment is beginning to pay off. We just discovered a massive aquifer at Takaba that is giving us 30,000 cubic metres of water per hour, thanks to satellite technology,” says Governor Roba.

It is for this reason that the County Government’s water ministry, under the stewardship of Mr. Ahmed Ali Madey, has launched an ambitious programme to make water available all year round in this semi-arid region. It is quite a herculean task, but signs so far are that it is turning around. Prior to devolution, the national government used to allocate about KSh40 million per year towards water development activities in Mandera County.

With the coming of the County Government in 2013, this figure has registered a meteoric growth to stand at KSh800 million per annum. The journey has been audacious. In March 2013, the county had one urban and 84 rural water supply schemes. Some 104 rural centres and villages did not have permanent water sources.

There were about 120 active emergency water trucking sites and only eight of the 11 Government owned water bowsers in the County were operational. There were only 29 Government employed officers in the post. Facing this task, the County Government sunk 26 boreholes in its first year of existence. It de-silted 14 others and constructed four water pans. The County put up 64 water kiosks and made a policy decision towards gender equality by having all such kiosks in the county managed by women. Construction of eight underground tanks on emergency mode was also done to harness rain runoff.

The underground tanks have capacities ranging from 300,000 litres to 600,000 litres

and have proved crucial in drought mitigation. Mr. Madey’s team also developed a programme that ensured delivery of water to every thirsty ‘boma’ during drought. Since

June 2013, the county has witnessed three drought cycles. The good news is that the

county coped without external support, as wouldn’t previously be the case. The worst of such droughts occurred in August last year. It lasted through to October. In Madey’s words, “It was a disaster.” To make matters worse, many of the county’s boreholes, managed by user associations, had broken down. To rescue the situation, Madey’s ministry hired extra 25 bowsers to supply water to 156 affected villages across the County and to schools, hospitals and security camps.

No death occurred as a result of the drought and the water minister is quick to point out that, in comparison to the pre-devolution times, in which help would arrive only after images of dead or emaciated animals and sometimes people, had been published in the national or sometimes international media. “In the past, during drought, the national government would declare it a national emergency and charitable organizations would stream in. Last year, not a single animal died from drought. We have to save the lives of our people and their animals. The answer is in water,” Mr. Madey says. The ministry’s commitment has encouraged individuals to issue alerts to ministry officials about impending water shortages. The minister recently received one concerning Guticha, Morodhele and Dimtu wards. Such participation helps the government to act before situations get out of hand.

The distribution of water using bowsers is nonetheless a stopgap measure, Mr. Madey stresses. The approach is costly and time consuming. Water delivery using a bowser costs an average of Sh27 per kilometre per tonne.

And because of poor road infrastructure, it takes about three hours to cover about 120 kilometres, which is the average distance that the bowsers cover. Additionally, a bowser can wait for up to three hours at water source to be attended to. That means one bowser hardly makes more than one trip a day. “Hence the many vehicles we have to hire to deliver water to different places,” Madey explains.

The County government has, therefore, initiated activities aimed at establishing more sustainable measures to deal with the recurrent water shortage in the area. “This year (2014-2015), we are drilling 17 boreholes across the county and making 22 earth pans,” Madey says.

This drilling will be preceded by a hydro- geological survey. But the county is looking to making use of even better water-finding technologies. “Even though we are using hydro-geological survey, this technology is not reliable and the County Government has moved to undertake aquifer mapping using the latest technology such as satellite and radar and hopes it will clearly identify the ground water potential.

The study involves the drilling of four exploratory boreholes using the best rigs available,” Madey says. The earth pans, on the other hand, will have capacity to hold between 20,000 cubic meters to 30,000 cubic meters, except for four, which have been designed to accommodate about 60,000 cubic metres each.

These four will be located in Dandu, Kiliweheri, Gither and Derkale areas. They are in Mandera West and Banisa sub-counties, which are the most needy and have ground water potential. Madey’s ministry is also keen to modernise and improve water supply in Mandera town. In that respect, plans are underway to build a treatment plant and put together a system with the capacity to distribute clean water to the current and future population. Madey is keen to have that changed: “We want to do it right. We want to make use of technology. This will necessitate complete re-piping and installation of a computerised system.

 Progress Report: 2 years of Devolution

  Achievements
• A five-year strategic plan in place
• 40 boreholes drilled and equipped, including a crucial one at Takaba.
• 38 storage tanks of capacity ranging from 30,000 litres to 100,000 litres constructed.
• 25 bowsers in place to deliver water wherever it’s needed in the county to save human and livestock lives.