Some 67 per cent of Nyeri Water and Sanitation Company customers who are low-income earners are set to be the biggest beneficiaries of proposed tariffs.
The Water Services Regulatory Board (Wasreb) while analysing the company’s operations noted that 67 per cent of Nyeri Water and Sanitation Company's (Nyewasco's) area of operations is dominated by low-income earners.
Nyewasco plans to launch new water tariffs. It serves Nyeri town and its environs.
Wasreb requires charges to be reviewed every five years, but the last time Nyewasco reviewed its tariffs was about 10 years ago.
Francis Kiora, the chief commercial services and strategy manager at the company said on Tuesday the current tariffs expired in 2013.
“Our operations have not been optimised as expected because we have been using what our regulator refers to as a non-cost recovery tariff,” he said during a media briefing in Nyeri town.
Nyewasco plans to collect views on the proposed tariffs from members of the public in the next few days. Households that consume zero units will only pay Sh50 standing charges.
The old tariffs’ standing charge is calculated at the rate of Sh31.84 per unit, which translates into a minimum of 318.4, plus a standing charge of Sh50, bringing the total to Sh368.4.
“This means even if you consumed zero up to 10 units, we would charge you Sh368 on the minimum. This is for those areas that do not have sewer services,” he said.
But going forward, Wasreb requires that water providers countrywide reduce the minimum bracket from one to 10 to one to six. The minimum charge, therefore, will be calculated on the basis of six units and will change from Sh332, meaning the new rate of Sh47 being increased from Sh31.84 to Sh47.
However, being calculated on a maximum of six units, the rates will be increasing but 67 per cent of the low-income earners will have their burden reduced if they incur anything between zero and six.
The company has had no separate tariff for sewer and was charging the same rate as water, meaning if one had used 10 units of water, the sewer was also calculated at the same rate — assumed to be 10 units.
“But two things have been proposed in these tariffs. One is that for the domestic customers, we will only charge 75 per cent of the consumption of water for sewer,” Kiora said.
Also, there will be a separate tariff for sewer where, for example, between one and six, where it charges water at Sh47 for domestic users, it will be charging Sh45 for sewer and so the sewer rate will be lower.
However, the rates are expected to go up for commercial, industrial customers and government who were paying Sh47.77 for zero to 10 brackets but will now pay up to Sh75.
There will also be an increment in public schools and water kiosks, which will witness an increment of Sh10.
But Kiora said the company will regulate the tariff charged by vendors to remain at Sh1 for every 10 litres as those buying from them are low-income earners.
The proposed tariffs will make it possible for the company to upgrade the pipeline to improve water supply to residents.
“This is because the current pipeline has been overcome by the growth rate because, for some time, we have had financial constraints,” he said.
Quality of drinking water will also be maintained and the company will be able to automate its systems to ensure its customers get accurate, timely and consistent billing.
Wasreb requires the company to increase its sewer coverage within a period of five years from the current 28 per cent to 40 per cent as part of its execution of the new tariffs.
Nyewasco, already known for its low non-revenue water of 15 per cent, also plans to work towards reducing it to 12 per cent by the third year of implementation of the tariffs. It will charge Sh75 for tariffs between seven and 20 units in the proposed tariffs from the Sh44 it charged for between 11 and 20 earlier.