The Africa Climate Summit held in Nairobi Kenya in September 2023, had a side panel to discuss ‘Accelerating Climate Resilient Water Investments in Africa’. After this Summit ended, various foreign countries and private investors have invested in Africa’s water sector, funding various water infrastructure in Africa. This move has seen countries like Kenya come up with the Water Amendment Bill 2023 that has allowed for Private Public Partnerships in the Water Ministry. This is so wrong. Privatizing Africa’s water will create much more unnecessary debt and higher water bills. Poor people will lack access to clean water even further. It is disingenuous to claim that African governments are ‘accelerating climate resilient water investments’, whatever that means, given that Africa has large groundwater and water bodies that are sufficient to water the continent. We have already observed the construction of many dams in Kenya, and residents displaced without any compensation. Others are terribly underpaid such that they can’t afford to relocate elsewhere, and they are rendered squatters. This is a terrible land grab by the government. Afribundance rejects this terrible idea of foreign countries and private investors ‘owning Africa’s water and water infrastructure’. This model failed in Bolivia and led to the infamous ‘Water War’. Afribundance recommends exploring aquifers such as Lotikipi in Turkana, Kenya that would supply the whole country with water for at least 70 years. Afribundance exposed this in another article. That would be the best course of action and the most ‘climate-resilient’ water investment. Exploring this water source would leave Kenya self-sufficient in its water and food needs, and this would displease the investors who use Africa as their ready market for exploitation. Why then do they continue to keep Africa in debt to access their most basic human needs?
‘Imagine a Day without Water’
October 19, 2023 was ‘Imagine a Day without Water Day’. Some of us at Afribundance don’t have to imagine it. Together with our African neighbors, we have gone at least a day if not more without water. The question remains, who is destroying Africa’s water sources? In Feb 2023, Nation Media Group reported that more than half a million residents in some of the driest parts in Kenya were facing a 900 percent rise in their water bill. Notably, Nation Media reported that this punitive price hike was being carried out during the toughest time of drought, even though the implementation of the regulations had been passed 18 months earlier. This was an intentional plan to deny water to residents, who could not afford it in the first place, before the soaring prices due to the harsh economic times.
The World Bank had recommended the ‘package of reforms’ to increase the collection of revenues on water, and reduce ‘Non Revenue Water (NRW) usage, for Kenya to acquire lending from this institution. Kenya’s government set up a water protection police unit claiming that this would protect ‘critical water sources’, but they went after the poor collecting non-revenue water from leaking water sources. The government planned on charging an additional 5 percent water conservancy levy of a user’s monthly use cost. This is wrong given that the water conservancy service is offered by foreign international organizations, and in many instance not to benefit the local citizens. Kenya’s government is also applying extremely harsh penalties of Sh.25000 ($165) for each month of delay in citizens renewing a water permit. Any use of water above the permitted amount by 5 percent would be charged Sh.10 per cubic meter. This is the same government asking farmers to abandon the use of ‘rain-fed agriculture’ and embrace irrigation from the water provided through dams. This means that farmers in Kenya would pay more for growing food crops than they previously did.
In the next three years, Kenya’s President Ruto plans to spend Sh 50 billion in the construction of dams. Ruto’s government announced that the government planned to build 100 dams through the public-private partnerships (PPPs) with foreign private firms constructing the dams then recovering their money through water tariffs. Afribundance found that most of these firms include World Economic Forum (WEF) partners and companies associated with them. Additionally, the UK government will be building the Sh425 billion High Grand Falls Dam, on River Tana through a UK-Kenya partnership. The water purchase agreement indicates that the dam project will provide irrigation water for farmland and use the fees for irrigation to repay the funds raised privately to finance the construction of water infrastructure.
The UK based firm GBM engineering will build and operate the dam for 20 years to recoup its investment. Kenya rejected a cheaper tender from China State Construction Engineering Corp to build this dam, which would have been at Sh.189 billion. This means that Kenya will be hugely enslaved in debt for decades, yet they could have explored an aquifer that could liberate them from all of this for at least seven decades!
Another outrageous proposal for ‘climate resilient’ water solutions to Africa’s water scarcity would include intense cloud seeding or cloud zapping. This is wrong, due to the many unknowns with this technology. Additionally, countries like Kenya have used cloud seeding for decades, and droughts are getting worse and the country is still water insufficient.
Written by : Njeri Robinson. Njeri is an international Humanitarian Affairs expert, researching on African Affairs for 20 years.