Drought Makes Kibera Thirst

Water rationing in Nairobi has hit Kibera hard,The Daily Nation reports (via allafrica news.)

How's this for an outrage: Joseph Kimani, the technical director of the Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company believes that the million or so squatters in Kibera "want free water." Yet it's well know among the cognoscenti that Kibera residents and the city's other squatters actually pay ten times more for water than people in the legal neighborhoods of Nairobi.

And here's another outrage: "The situation in the slums is so bad, Mr Kimani says, that because of the illegal connections, the company loses between 30 and 40 per cent of the water it distributes to Nairobi."

It's high time for the government to muscle out the vendors, both legal and illegal, who buy water from the city and sell it at a profit to squatters. It's high time to give squatters what they deserve: decent, affordable and high quality municipal water service. Saving that 40 percent of this precious resource is worth the cash cost.

As the cliche goes: Just do it.