The water crisis in Kenya has significantly worsened due to the country's growing population against the ever-rising demand for clean water.
Many Kenyans are therefore pushed to explore ways to cut costs on their water bills to ease the cost of living brought about by the harsh economy reality.
Water service providers are often put on the spot for the ballooning bills and for the inflated prices. .
However, according to Anthony Ambugo, CEO of the Water Service Providers Association, appearing on a local TV station on Wednesday, October 13, stated that consumers are partly to blame for the high cost of water bills. He stated that consumers tend to ignore simple mistakes that contribute largely to their bills.
"There could be technical problems that could contribute to this problem, such as the use of faulty meters, where there are unscrupulous suppliers who sell cheap meters that contribute to losses. These technical problems should be reported to the water service providers," he stated.
Ambugo added that the consumers who use unapproved water connections add on to the burden of the bills due to high costs of electricity used to treat and pump water to their households by service providers, stating that it costs Kshs15 to Kshs22 KWh to pump the water.
"It is a right to have clean water, hence it costs water service providers to make it clean, safe, and available," he stated.
On the other hand, Samson Malasi, the CEO of the Kenya Water and Sanitation Civil Society detailed that some consumers failed to pay for water services.
“Consumers who are capable of paying stopped paying, hence contributing to the crisis,” he noted.
He also added that consumers' failure to report bursts and leakages leads them to pay for non-revenue water, which is water that is unaccounted for but must be paid for by the consumer.
Malasi reiterated that consumers often turn a blind eye to unlawful practices around them, by choosing not to report people who use unapproved water connections.
It is, therefore, the responsibility of the consumer to ensure that they are keen to identify these simple mistakes to alleviate them from coughing up too much money in their bills. It is advisable to be on the lookout to ensure that one is accorded the service they pay for.
