The Kimugu Water Supply project in Kericho is set to be expanded. The Ministry of Water and Sanitation in conjunction with the Development Bank of Germany and Lake Victoria South Water Works Development Agency have announced a funding of Sh 1.02billion for the works.
The water project is one of the key flagships of the President under food and nutrition in the agenda. Four of them are now at 66% to completion, according to the project resident engineer Mr Fabian Masinde. During a site visit by the Presidential Delivery unit (PDU) Director Mr John Karanja and his team to assess the development works at the project, Eng. Masinde said that construction of the structure at Kimugu river intake point was at 95% completion.
Other walling at the intake point building was complete, while river protection works (gabions) Intake Bridge, diversion closure and re-river diversion were also substantially complete and what was remaining was restoring of the site into its original natural habitat by planting of trees and grassing was ongoing.
Project beneficiaries
Eng. Masinde noted that supply of steel pipes of diameter 600 mm for the 3.3 kilometres out of the 7.7 kilometres from the intake point to the treatment works plant has been done. the remaining section of 4.4 kilometres was yet to be supplied with steel pipes by the supplier as manufactures had raised the purchasing cost of the steel pipes by 71% which altered the costs of procuring the pipes by more than Sh100 million.
More than 200,000 residents of Kericho benefit with 13 million litres of clean water per day by the end of this year 2021. Eng. Masinde told the PDU director and his team that they were seeking other alternatives, probably the High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) pipes, for the remainder of the section from within the country to control the general cost of the project.
He added that the Projectโs main contractors Nanchang Foreign Engineering company JV and Jiangxi Jingtai Water Conservancy Company and Electrical Power Construction Company have tentatively agreed to purchase the alternative HDPE pipes of 600mm diameter so as to Fast-track the construction pipeline between the Kimugu intake point and the treatment works.
The engineer said that the construction of 13 million cubic meters water storage tank and other treatment works at Duka Moja, which include chemical storage mixing building, sedimentation tank, filters, filters gallery and control room, 5000 cubic meters treated water storage tank, Chlorine storage and mixing building, pump house, backwash water and sludge lagoon, sludge drying beds and staff houses were at various stages of completion. The site has been connected with electricity following the intervention of PDU Director John Karanja.
