Soweto residents in Mombasa welcome water and sanitation improvement project

Mwanaisha Nuru, a landlady in the Soweto area of Magongo, in the Changamwe subcounty, Mombasa, frequently had to deal with disease outbreaks in her house because of poor sanitation.

She and her tenants used the pit latrine which used to fill often, forcing them to employ the expensive services of a sewage exhauster.

“There was always a constant smell in the house and maggots used to be seen everywhere even when you sprayed some insecticide. There were always flies around,” Nuru said.

However, when she heard of the Safisan Toilets programme, she jumped at the opportunity.

Safisan Toilets is a programme by the Water Sector Trust Fund (WSTF) in partnership with Mombasa Water Supply and Sanitation Company (Mowasco) and the Mombasa county government that seeks to improve sanitation in low-income urban areas.

The project entails convincing house owners and landlords to construct new toilets or rehabilitate their existing ones and reward them with a subsidy of Sh20,000 for a newly constructed toilet and Sh15,000 for a rehabilitated one.

It involves replacing the pit latrines with modern toilets and connecting them to the proper sewer system.

This way, according to Mowasco managing director Abdirahim Farah, the basic sanitation in low-income areas is improved.

“We want to reduce the contamination between sewers and boreholes, improve sanitation around their livelihood and reduce cases of water-borne diseases in neighbourhoods,” Farah said.

The project, which is in its second phase, targets to rehabilitate 300 house toilets in Soweto and other low-income areas in Mombasa.

The first phase was done in 2020 at Mskiti Noor area of Changamwe also where 245 house toilets were constructed or rehabilitated.

The second phase of the project started in September 2023 and is expected to be completed in the next two months.

Nuru is among 111 landlords who have already benefited from the project.

“Despite at least 15 people using the toilets, they are now not smelly, there are no flies and everybody washes their hands with soap after visiting the toilet,” Nuru said.

She encouraged other residents to adopt the new system.

“We used to have running stomachs now and then with the old pit latrines. But since I changed it through Safisan, we no longer get diarrhoea,” Nuru said.

Farah said this is part of a wider plan by Mowasco to improve sanitation in Mombasa.

“70 per cent of Mombasa is classified as low-income areas. That means the target is bigger and we are trying to use a multi-pronged approach to improving sanitation,” Farah said.

He said Mowasco is also in the process of rehabilitating the Kipevu West water treatment plant in addition to rehabilitating around 8km of sewer lines around the West Mainland area, which includes Changamwe and Jomvu subcounties.

The MD said Mowasco is trying to solve the water and sanitation problem in Mombasa in phases.

“Once we are done with Phase 2 we are hoping that our funder will give us more funds to continue with the project,” Farah said.

He said Mowasco is also improving the stormwater outlets in Mombasa in another project by the World Bank.

“We have people who have illegally connected their sewers to the stormwater systems. We are also trying to see how we can fix that as well,” Farah said.

He said those willing can apply to have their pit latrines rehabilitated and so far they have around 500 applications for the same.