Creaw Portal

CHARITY NGILU, Water Minister

Up to 50 per cent of the members of the Mombasa Water and Sewerage Company must be women."

despite clear guidelines 011 how board members should be ap­pointed. The Mombasa mayor maintains that the minister's demands

are unacceptable and il­legal.

Deputy mayor John Mcharo says the absence of a board may make it impossible for the board to receive Sh6.3 billion

grant from the World Bank to rehabilitate the Mzima Water pipeline and other water sources in the region. He says the Council has de­cided to go to COUft if the min­ister stands her ground and

handpicks the company direc­tors and imposes them on the Council.

WASTED WATER

Investigations by Home & Away indicate that while Mom­basa residents go thirsty, there are several litres of water that go to waste along the Mzima pipeline between Jomvu and Changamwe as a result of vandalism. Several trucks are parked along the Nai­robl-Mombasa highway and car washers do booming business.

Medical experts say the use of borehole water for domestic purposes is a time bomb because Mombasa residents in general use pit latrines. Tests conducted by the Ministry of Health indicate that faeces find their way into boreholes and contaminars water. A quick solution to this water crisis is, therefore, critical.

Health experts warn further that the water crisis in Mom­basa, coupled with over reliance on borehole water, poses a great health concern to the health ex­perts in the tmVI1. But even with such dire warnings, residents of the sprawling Kisauni and Mishornoroni area say they would rather use the 'free' borehole wa­ter because it is available.

Residents are aware thai they must first boil borehole water before using it at home. "But we rarely do it because we believe God is there for us," says SaidAth­man, a resident. "We no longer think and hope for piped water."

Katana Charo, a water vendor, says the crisis is a blessing to him because he is making money from selling borehole water. Every day, he takes his mkokoteni(handcart) to the nearest free water point and fills it, then hawks the water di­rectly to people's homes. A 20 litre [errican sells at Sh20. At the end of each day, Charo makes about Sh 1,000. He counts himself lucky when he finds clean water because he then sells a 20 litre jerrican for between Sh30 to Sh40, increasing his earnings to more than Shl,500 per day.

BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Charo is one of the few people in Mombasa who wishes that the watercrisis continues. "That-way I will be able to make enough mon­ey to go back to my rural home in KaJoleni, Giriama, and look for a woman to marry," he says.

Patuma Ali, a Kisauni resident, says the water crisis poses grave challenges to women. "We are forced to wake up in the wee hours of the morning to go searching for water," she says. "Often, we go to queue at the nearest water point with our jerricans, It is more corn­man to end up with untreated wa­ter than with clean water.

"Mombasa has had water prob­lems for a long time but I don't think we have experienced the severity of the crisis as we are suf­fering now. It has been a long time since we got a single drop in our pipes and there is no explanation from the authorities."