Residents battle disease as taps remain dry for months

from The Nation

Story by KITAVI MUTUA

A complex sanitation problem, which claims dozens of lives every year in Kitui Town is likely to get out of hand if not urgently dealt with.

The area is synonymous with severe and frequent water shortages, which also threaten to halt the operations of colleges, schools, hospitals and prisons.

And even though local residents have a fallback plan, it is as hazardous as they come — they resort to drinking water from wells, which health authorities warn is heavily contaminated.

The shortages are partly occasioned by a long standing dispute between the Kitui Water and Sanitation Company and Kenya Power and Lighting Company, over a power bill of Sh15 million.

In April, the power company disconnected supply to the Masinga water station, which serves the town and areas around it, leading to some schools closing earlier than scheduled.

District medical officer of health John Logedi says the frequent water shortages were a major concern to health authorities and should be addressed urgently before the situation gets out of hand.

“We are living under serious threat of outbreak of water-borne diseases,” the medic says, adding that at one time when the taps ran dry, the Kitui General Hospital resorted to buying water from far to sustain its operations, including feeding patients.

Dr Logedi condemns well water as being unfit for human consumption. The wells are shallow and their close proximity to pit latrines are a danger.

Domestic use

Human waste from the latrines easily seeps into the shallow wells, which provide water for domestic use, he says.

Residents are getting impatient with the many unfulfilled promises by Ministry of Water officials to ensure supply of clean water.

Kitui mayor Patrick Makasi says officials of the Kitui water company should explain how the company ran up such a huge bill, which it has failed to settle and yet they were prompt in paying their monthly water bills.

“This is clearly a case of mismanagement of public funds whose mess the board of this water company should be held accountable for,” the mayor told journalists in his office.

He said the board should have warned consumers, including key public institutions, on impending shortages and the duration it would take to sort out the matter.

Year-in year-out, health authorities face an uphill task of containing persistent malaria outbreaks in the area, specifically within the town.

As a result, health and sanitation has become a headache for the town’s authorities because the waste, generated by more than 20,000 people cannot be disposed of easily.

One of the town’s residential estates is infamously named Mosquito, due to the high population of the malaria-causing insects, which breed in stagnant water.

Notwithstanding the link between the estate and its odd name, the mosquitoes cause hundreds of deaths across the district annually.

District public health officer Johnstone Muinde says consumption of the underground water is among the leading causes of water-related diseases in the town.

“We have over the years waged a relentless public health campaign warning residents to boil all water before consumption as a way of addressing this sanitation challenge,” Mr Muinde told the Nation in an interview.

According to the mayor, at least Sh600 million is required to fund the construction of a modern sewerage that can cater for a growing population.

Four years ago, the Kitui municipal council funded a feasibility study by experts from the Urban Development Department in the Ministry of Local Government on how the sewerage and drainage system can be built but lacked funds to implement the crucial plans.

“Through public meetings, the council has embarked on educating the town residents on simple, short term waste disposal measures to cope with the sanitation challenge,” says the mayor.

Contrary to wide expectations, the completion of Masinga-Kitui water pipeline five years ago failed to ease water problems in Kitui Town and areas around it.

District water engineer Kyuu Kangee says the Masinga water supply held at the Kitui reservoir can not be entirely released to consumers because it will flood the town due to the absence of the sewerage system.

“Our hands as the ministry are tied and we can only release to the public 15 per cent of the capacity while the rest lies idle,” he said.

Mr Denge Lugayu, the regional manager of the Africa Medical Research Foundation (Amref) says the complex sanitation problems in the district can be easily overcome if the Government committed more funding to the problem.

Amref has been helping to drill boreholes and building wells and dams in the arid region.

Mr Lugayu says 70 per cent of the diseases affecting the residents are hygiene-related and can be eradicated if relevant authorities focused on finding lasting solutions.

In the neighbouring Mutomo District, residents spend a huge portion of their monthly earnings in buying water for domestic use. Women and children in the vast and dry area undergo a great deal of difficulty to get a single jerrican of water in their homes.

“Women trek long distance and for hours in search of water but even worse, the water is not by any standards safe for human consumption,” says Mr Isaac Muoki, the area MP.

Mr Muoki confirmed that some of his poor constituents drink dirty water, putting their health at risk.

“Throughout the year, outbreaks of water-borne diseases like typhoid, dysentery, malaria, intestinal worms and amoebiosis are a regular phenomenon because the water they consume is obviously contaminated,” he says.

Water scarcity in the area is so severe that, on average a 20-litre container of water sells for Sh20 throughout the year, a situation which further aggravates the area’s high poverty levels.

Locals rely on a few water pans and earth dams scattered far apart, which dry up soon after the rains.