Centum CEO James Mworia. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Investment firm Centum has signed a Sh321.15
million ($3.2 million) deal with a Dubai water management solutions
firm for a seawater desalination plant at its proposed multi-billion
shilling housing project in Kilifi.
Metito (Overseas)
Ltd has been handed a one-year contract to set up a plant that will
freshen salty Indian Ocean water by removing saline minerals.
The
firm, which besides water desalination also manufactures water and
wastewater treatment systems, has been given up to September 2019 to
complete the project.
The proposed facility, one of the biggest private undertakings
in the region, will have a daily water production capacity of 3,000
cubic meters, the Nairobi Securities Exchange-traded investment firm
said in a statement.
The project is part of
infrastructural development at the 10,254-acre mixed-use Vipingo
Development where Centum is targeting mid- to high-income homeowners and
investors in manufacturing, warehousing, logistics and retail trade
sectors.
“Our strategy at Vipingo is to master develop
sites and provide commercial impetus for investors to establish new
urban nodes,” Centum said in its annual report for the year to March
2018 published in August.
Despite being Kenya’s prime
destination resort, the coastal region has endured a shortage of
drinkable water for decades, with some households forced to use portable
containers to desalinate seawater.
Kilifi County
depends on Malindi-based Baricho Water Works in Kilifi for fresh water
supply, which also supplements supply to Kenya’s largest resort city,
Mombasa.
Mombasa has no fresh water source. Besides Baricho plant, the
city relies on Mzima Springs in Taita Taveta, Tiwi boreholes and Marere
Water Supply in Kwale County.
The government has since 2016 been planning to set large-scale desalination plants with a key focus on Mombasa and Lamu.
Mombasa
County Assembly in October approved Governor Hassan Joho’s plan to
construct two seawater desalination plants with a proposed daily
capacity of 130,000 cubic meters of fresh water, contracts which have
separately been awarded to a Spanish and Swiss firms.
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