The Kiambu government has set aside Sh1 billion for piping water to more than 60,000 homes.
Governor Kimani Wamatangi said on Tuesday that the piping work is expected to take less than six months.
He was speaking at the county government headquarters in Kiambu town during the distribution of water pipes and water tanks that will cover a network of more than 100 kilometres across the county.
“The county government targets to instal a minimum of 300km of clean water pipes in every ward in the next one year,” Wamatangi said.
The programme is being spearheaded by the department of water, environmental and natural resources and eight water companies.
Wamatangi said the county government has also bought water tanks, which will be supplied to ECDE centres in the county.
He said the county government is also encouraging Kiambu residents to harvest water.
The governor said out of the eight water companies in Kiambu county, only two of them are making money.
“The others are surviving through the mercy of God. If they were private companies, they could have been auctioned by now, because they are not making money and it is not necessarily their fault, it is the way they had programmed themselves,” Wamatangi said.
He said his administration has agreed with the water companies that they need to change how they run their operations.
“It is the responsibility of the water companies to ensure that water reaches the consumers before they bill anyone,” the governor said.
He said water is a constitutional right and not an option and moving forward, the county government will partner with the water companies through requisition, especially those that are insolvent.
“The water companies will be giving the county government the problems they are facing in their jurisdictions and we will give them cash based on properly evaluated documents,” Wamatangi said.
He said the water and environment department has been given a go-ahead to employ men and women who will maintain cleanliness in every ward.
“We want to assign every market, every road and every area to our young men and women to maintain cleanliness,” the county chief said.
He further said the county government has formed a rapid disaster response team to deal with the effects of El Niño rains.
“We have taken people from the county commissioner's office, people from the Kenya Police, people from the water department and people from the assembly to create a disaster response team. We have set aside a budget of Sh50 million for the programme,” he said.
He said once the disaster team identifies a problem, they will only need to make a request for funding to ensure no Kiambu person loses life to the El Niño rains.
“We have put people on ground to unblock drains and we have put big culverts to ensure water passes with ease. Our roads will have good drainage systems," Wamatangi said.
