CS Kariuki: Life as a leader puts you in the worst situation but you've to work it out

Civic responsibility is not about being policed, it is about being disciplined not to vandalise projects aimed at improving livelihoods.

Star writer Agatha Ngotho spoke to Water CS Sicily Kariuki, who said a lot of public properties have been vandalised.

She candidly talked about irrigation, water and sanitation issues and the challenges she has encountered in the ministry.

What is the one thing that stands out in terms of innovation in the irrigation subsector?

Household water pans. It started as a concept which looked like it was not very executable because it is micro and difficult to measure and implement. I’m glad I listened when the concept was brought to the Cabinet three years or so ago.

My first assignment when I came to this ministry last year was to go visit a project in Machakos county. From what I saw, the project was so practical, so real from a point of livelihood and economic well-being of the people around there. You can see that many of them are still on the journey of building houses, a promise for a better future.

But notably for me, I found out that farmers were able to grow crops for the export market. This is a project worth mentioning, it’s a project worth talking about, and from where I’m sitting, this is a project that has brought transformation within a short time.

My belief is that small, neat, faster to implement gives better impact within a short time. The mega projects have their place. For instance, Mwache Multipurpose Dam in Kwale county will take about three years to just acquire land and convince everybody (the politics of land). Thiba Dam in Kirinyaga county took a similar amount of time, while Thwake Multipurpose Dam in Ukambani is only coming to fruition.

Bigger projects have their place but it can be very frustrating because it takes a very long time before people can see the impact. If there is any example of public-private-partnership, it is through household water pans.

I want this to be on record and I’ve challenged my team to have a proper analysis of the impact at the micro and macro level so it can be scaled up.

Sustainability is always a challenge. When documenting the impact assessment, I would want them to give me mechanisms of sustainability, because sustainability is going to help us speak the way I’m speaking five years from now.

What is the current status of dams in the country?

Let me start by taking you through a journey of what a dam is. There is what we call mega dams like Thwake, Thiba and Mwache. Mega dams are complex in terms of resources, time and engineering. Then there is the next level which is the community level dam or pan which are small in size.

From an engineering point, Thiba Dam will be complete by end of December. From a utility point, it could take another two to three months to get the water to capacity.

Thwake, another signature project for the President, is set to be completed by the end of this financial year in June. It will be going to phase 2 which is irrigation system design. It will have a component of water conveyance covering important structures such as Konza City. It will have a third element of electricity generation so that is the next phase for which we have done the design and we are in the stage of resource mobilisation.

When President Uhuru Kenyatta got into office, we had less than 350,000 acres of structured irrigation. This has since doubled to 600,000 acres and I think this is phenomenal.

It was reported that the Northern Water Tunnel will be operational by the end of 2020, but Kenyans are yet to start accessing water? What is the update?

The NWT has five components. There is the tunnel in terms of completion, I would say without a doubt that we are at 98 per cent completion, technically speaking we can call that complete.

The second component is Kigoro water treatment plant which was done even before I joined this ministry.

The third component consists of pipelines for conveyancing water- one is the Embakasi-Kabete pipeline and the other one is Uthiru-Karen pipeline all the way to the side of Ongata Rongai. From an engineering point, this is complete.

Then there's the main one, which is not complete but it's a work in progress and we have contractors going on with it. One would wonder how the others are complete and the main one is not complete? This is due to the challenge of land acquisition since it is a 36km pipeline, that is huge. Since last year, the National Land Commission (NLC) has been working on land acquisition issues, including valuation.

We are putting our energies on the new pipeline to at least evacuate half of the water using the system because it will also bring quite some relief into Nairobi given that the other structures are more or less complete.

I am a little bit caught up due to tax related issues and exceptions and we are waiting for feedback from the National Treasury.

We are also challenged with additional resources to help speed up the work. Overall, I require Sh3.4 billion to cater to the tax element and the ongoing work because the contractors are there but they are not able to mobilise 100 per cent and move with speed.

What is happening with sanitation? 

We are at 28 per cent national regulated coverage which is way below our target because ideally, we should be working towards 100 per cent coverage. Perhaps you may want to ask with that low percentage what we are doing? We are doing several things, currently there are 39 projects across the country on sanitation or sewerage. 

The initial target is the major cities; these projects are at various stages of implementation, but most of them are well underway 40 per cent - 90 per cent. Once we are done with most of these projects which is by June of 2022, we will be documenting 40 per cent of regulated coverage, which is not too bad.

For the first time, we have developed a sanitation policy to guide us with policy issues, how we articulate our investments in the policy space, how we bring in partnership in the policy space and the framework for implementing or investing as we move forward.

The policy is waiting to move to the Cabinet and have it adopted by Parliament.

The third issue that we are working on is perhaps giving special focus to major cities, Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa. But moving forward, we will be looking at emerging cities like Nakuru.

We are investing in rehabilitating sewage infrastructure such as ablution blocks, for example, by way of getting additional pipelines, expanding sewerage plans in Kisumu and Nairobi. We have an ongoing investment in land acquisition. We are focused on these areas because that is where most of the population is. Part of our new journey is also sensitising the population on what it means for citizens to police the investments we are putting there.

How have you been able to address some of the wrangles on the water services boards under your ministry?

Life as a leader is that you are put in the worst situation but you have to work it out amicably. For example, my work involves managing engineers, yet I have no knowledge in engineering but I have to get them to work so what happens is that you work even harder to inspire these technical people. You work a lot harder for the board to get the confidence that you mean well, you are just not coming to reform because in Kenya, we think reform is punishing. Reform changes either the mechanics of delivery, consultation or mechanics of coordination.

I have a target and clarity in terms of the agenda that I need to deliver to support the President. So if you come and you have conflict with the general direction and you are acting funny, you will move.

The choice I made when I first came here was to identify who is on my critical path so we either walk together once you understand what I’m looking for or if you’re not able to because sometimes you can try and not be able to, you can move. I must say I have found a team that is aligned.

Initially I had challenges of speed, the thinking of the technical people is that a project taking six to seven years is not unusual and that is what the contract says. But I have gotten to a point where we have changed a bit of business processes, to tell ourselves that it is not ok to deliver a project that we can deliver in two years, we deliver in five years, particularly if it is a funded project. We also told ourselves it is not ok to stretch ourselves so much that you touch and go and not finish.

How did the Covid-19 pandemic affect the delivery of irrigation, water and sanitation services?

Covid-19 meant different things to different people. His Excellency said, 'you are on the front line of responding to the pandemic because of water, particularly in informal places'. We were worried that people would die and we had to look for additional resources to sink boreholes in informal settlements. We had the first 100 boreholes with water available within two months.

Our target was to have portable water where the population was densely populated and there was a huge demand for water to wash hands and clean food. We had a multi-stakeholder team and worked closely with NMS. If you go to any informal settlement now, you will see high water tanks labelled Athi Water and NMS that we did in two months.

The President brought in additional resources and we did another 93 boreholes, so we have 193 boreholes in the informal settlements within Nairobi and its outskirts.

Your ministry was ranked one of the top five performing ministries by the Ministry of Public Service and Gender’s evaluation of performance. What does this mean to you and your ministry?

It means that my team is delivering. I have a team that knows what it means to move there. Importantly I have a boss, who would call it as it is. He expects performance because he has a covenant with Kenyans. He is supportive  and recognises that without water, the Big Four agenda is not doable. I acknowledge my colleagues who have made our work possible under the coordination framework. For example, regional and county commissioners clear the way when a project needs to be unlocked at the local level.

But now I would be very embarrassed if we were to move to number seven because now we know the mechanics and we are a team that is now trusting.

Is the job done? Not yet and it is important for me to leave a mark and that is my focus right now. Some of the issues that are important to me are equity, value for money and sustainability.

I get very pleased when I go to a place where I’m told that this project was conceived in 1963, but it has happened in the time of President Uhuru. I am very happy because there have been people before me. I am very pleased when I go to a little project in my village in my county of Nyandarua and I’m told this project was conceived in the days of late JM Kariuki and it now serves 14,000 people.

The challenge for me now is to keep supporting the team, hold them accountable and keep the team motivated to see value beyond what they wake up to do. I have a duty on behalf of the President, so it does please me to lead a team that works to achieve this.

I am unapologetic about my gender and engagement on gender issues.

What challenges have you encountered since January 2020 when you came into the office?

The biggest challenge is land acquisition because we need almost 1,000 acres. There is a lot of mob justice, politicisation and emotional issues around land. It is worse for the sewerage projects because nobody wants solid waste on their doorstep and right now I have two projects. I have a project in Kapenguria, I’ve actually sat with the team and told them to move to an alternative site because we are stuck with close to Sh1 billion for over a year. Others are Mwache and Thiba dams where a lot of time and energy is spent in acquiring land. So, land by far for me has been one of the biggest challenges. There is also a little bit of challenge in availing and getting sufficient budget allocation at the time that is required. That could be true of any other infrastructure project that is big because we are competing for resources. As a subsector, water and sanitation can do with Sh100 billion per year but this is not available. Irrigation requires about Sh30 billion per year but this year we got Sh8 billion, so you see we are not even halfway done and that brings the challenge of giving proper coverage nationally.

Other challenges include encroachment and vandalism. There is a lot of vandalism in public property utilities. I have often said that civic responsibility is not about being policed, it’s about you having manners to know if we have put solar panels to help you farm through irrigation, become the policeman. You don’t have to wait for people in uniform to come and police for you.

Rumour has it that you want to get into politics? Is this true?

We are all politicians, it depends what you are looking for because what I am doing is also political and my boss is a politician. If you are waiting for me to say that I am going for elective politics, I will determine as we move.