Mombasa County governor Abdullswamad Sherrif Nassir has revealed that the coastal city is in dire need of at least KSh17 billion to fix the decaying sewerage system, which has been the cause of the discharge of untreated waste directly into the Indian Ocean.
While presenting the County Public Investment Committee of the Senate with his report, Nassir conceded that some crucial sewer lines such as Kizingo and Kipevu had given way and the city, in general, was suffering from a sanitation crisis.
He hinted that the continuous dumping of untreated sewage into the ocean was exposing the environment and residents of the coast to diseases as well as the marine ecosystem to being destroyed.
“The predicament we are facing is very huge. A compromise-free solution to Mombasa’s sewerage problem would cost us KSh17 billion. Sadly, the majority of our major sewer lines have broken down and raw waste is being emptied into the ocean,” Nassir told senators.
Nevertheless, the governor gave an assurance to the committee that his government had already committed a contractor who is expected to start the rehabilitation this month.
Governor said the strategy would be phased and that the first area of concern would be the fixing of the collapsed sewer lines so as to limit the release of sewage into the environment. Over time Mombasa, the second largest city of Kenya, has been battling a sewer system that is obsolete and was built decades ago for a much smaller population.
The MOH warns that if the issue of sewers is not attended to as a matter of urgency, then the city will reprising the sanitation crises over and over and this will be not only an economic problem but revitalizing it as a regional hub will be totally affected.
The senators appealed to county as well as the national governments to join hands in raising the required funds for the project. They termed the sewage problem as not only a local problem but also a national environmental concern.
