Nairobi Residents Get New Way to Check Water Supply Days

Nairobi residents will now be able to check their scheduled water supply days in advance, including updates on supply status, ending decades of uncertainty over the provision of this essential service.
The Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company has on Thursday unveiled a new online platform on its website that allows city residents to check their scheduled water supply days.
According to the essential service provider, the digital service, which provides access to the Equitable Water Distribution Schedule, marks a major transition toward tech-driven service delivery.
Through the platform, households, businesses, and institutions across Nairobi will be able to log into the system on the utility provider’s website and view when their areas will receive water.
This shift is designed to help residents plan ahead, store water efficiently, and manage their usagebetter amid growing demand for a reliable supply.
The innovation is also aimed at enhancing transparency, with Nairobi Water seeking to ensure that residents have access to clear and accurate information about water distribution.
Illegal water connections remain a major headache for Nairobi Water, worsened by the absence of a clear legal framework to tackle the menace. The practice continues to cause huge losses and undermine efforts to provide reliable supply to residents.
Appearing before the Senate County Public Investment and Special Funds Committee in July, Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja proposed penalties targeting residents who deny access to water meters. He said the move would improve efficiency and curb revenue losses at the utility company.
The governor explained that meter readers often struggle to access meters in residential homes, as homeowners are frequently away. In cases where housekeepers are present, Sakaja noted they are usually under strict instructions not to allow access, further complicating meter reading.
According to county estimates, of the 560,000 cubic metres of water supplied to Nairobi daily, about 300,000 cubic metres are lost through unlawful connections and other irregular tapping methods. These lossessignificantly strain the company’s ability to meet rising demand.
In 2023, the county reported that the Lang’ata Pipeline alone recorded around 130 illegal connections along the section serving Lang’ata, High Rise, Ngei Estate, and parts of Kibera.
The scale of the problem was also flagged by Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu, who revealed that in 2020, Nairobi Water produced 176.04 million cubic metres of water but billed only 86.35 million cubic metres. The remaining 89.69 million cubic metres, more than half of the total, was classified as non-revenue water, largely lost to unlawful connections.