Vendors pushing a handcart full of water container in Kaloleni Nairobi.
When we find Ms Grace Atieno, it is just after mid-morning in Lindi Ward, Kibra, Nairobi County.
Inside her single-room house, plastic jerricans are stacked neatly in one corner. Some are empty, and others are half full.
For Ms Atieno — a mother of three who lives with two relatives — water is not something that comes by simply turning on the tap. She plans, budgets for and constantly worries about it.
“With my family of five, I spend at least Sh500 every week to buy clean water. And that is for drinking and cooking only,” she says.
For cleaning, Ms Atieno relies on water from a nearby borehole, which costs extra money and is often unreliable. On some days, she says, the choice is between buying water and postponing some household needs.
“Water is expensive here. With young children, I have to make sure they are clean. Most of the time we struggle,” she says.
Ms Atieno’s experience captures a deepening crisis in Kibra and in several other low-income estates in Nairobi where access to clean, affordable and reliable water remains elusive. That is despite water being recognised in law as both a basic public service and a fundamental human right.
The Constitution places the responsibility for water provision squarely on the State. Yet for residents in Kibra, that obligation has increasingly collapsed into informal markets, private vendors and costly coping mechanisms that turn a public good into a daily financial burden.
Ms Atieno works in a nearby linen factory where she earns a gross monthly salary of Sh40,000. She says balancing household needs has become increasingly difficult as the cost of living rises and public services continue to deteriorate.
A vendor fills up at a watering point in Kibra.
Over the past few years, she has been forced to move houses several times in a bid to reduce the amount she uses on rent. This is a decision driven less by choice than by survival. Yet even as Ms Atieno cuts back on her budget, basic services such as water have become more expensive.
“We used to get small bonuses at work that helped me manage things, but they reduced them. Now everything comes from my salary. I pay tax, then I pay for water, rent, school, health… it feels like I am paying twice, but getting less every year,” she says.
A few kilometres away in a narrow alley in Highrise, Lang’ata, Peter Otieno, 42, a civil servant, voices similar frustration, but this time it is over services that rarely make headlines but quietly drain household incomes.
Despite paying taxes on fuel, county levies and value-added tax on nearly every purchase he makes, Mr Otieno still sets aside about Sh300 every month to pay private collectors to pick garbage from his estate.
And from this month, salaried workers are expected to surrender more than 30 per cent of their payslips to the State through various taxes. Yet, for many households — especially in informal settlements — public services continue to deteriorate.
Kibra residents say the problem is not simply about shortage, but about governance, accountability and the everyday cost of State failure where cartels flourish under the nose of the authorities. They say that subsidies fail to reach the intended beneficiaries, and low-income households shoulder the heaviest burden.
The water problem in Kibra has worsened in recent months, particularly after a major pipeline was rechannelled to exclusively supply Lang’ata. The water was previously shared between Kibra and Lang’ata.
A woman draws water at a watering point in Kibra on August 25, 2021.
The county government has not stepped in to address the problem. Instead, water vendors are taking advantage of the situation. Kibra residents allege that well-connected cartels control water access, pricing and distribution in full view of the State.
What was meant to be a subsidised public service has steadily morphed into a lucrative informal market.
“I buy a 20-litre jerrican at Sh10 from vendors when water is available. But when it runs out, I have to pay Sh40 per jerrican for door-to-door delivery. That is too much,” says Faith Hamadi.
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