The Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company is on the spot after it emerged that it lost water valued at Sh2.48 billion during the Covid-19 period.
It emerged on Tuesday that the firm supplied some eight million cubic meters of water to informal settlements at the height of the pandemic.
According to a report by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu, the company supplied water valued at Sh2.5 billion but the company declared only Sh16 million.
The company’s management could not provide work tickets to show how the water was supplied to the informal settlements.
According to the report, there were 22 water bowsers from the defunct Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) which were supplying water at a cost of Sh2,500 and Sh5,000 for 8,000 and 16,000 litres truck capacity, respectively.
Appearing before the Senate County Public Investment and Special Funds Committee on Tuesday, the Committee took to task Governor Johnson Sakaja and the firm’s Managing Director Nahashon Muguna to explain the variance.
The panel chaired by Vihiga Senator Godfrey Osotsi demanded to know why the sales had not been reconciled.
“From the work tickets given by the management, we did not see any truck going to any informal settlement. The work tickets were also not clear and just indicated the water was being supplied to Nairobi Metropolitan and not to a specific place like say Kibra,” an auditor pointed out.
Muguna, however, said the Sh2.5 billion in question is an exaggeration.
The MD held that there was no way 8,039,437 cubic metres of water could have been supplied during the period under review.
“Over eight million cubic metres of water is too much. If we were to supply such an amount of water, then we could have flooded the whole of Nairobi with water. It is impossible to have distributed such quantity,” Muguna said.
Further, he said the company gave water free to informal settlements as was directed by the national government.
He explained that the 22 NMS tankers ferried the water to the slums doing at least four trips daily with water sourced from Globe roundabout and the Kenya School of Monetary Studies.
“During the Covid-19 pandemic, the company was directed to provide free water to informal settlements and low income areas which did not result in revenue,” he said.
Kisumu Senator Professor Tom Ojienda questioned why the company failed to keep records of the tankers used and water supplied.
In his response, Muguna said the work tickets document is very bulky and that is why they failed to attach the entire record.
“Even if the work ticket did not show everything, every slum received water at least four times daily,” said Governor Johnson Sakaja.
