Meru Water and Sewerage Services (MEWASS) is located in Meru town in Meru County.
MEWASS was incorporated as a trust under the Trustees Act (Perpetual Succession) Cap 164 on July 24th, 2001.
The MEWASS Trust is governed in accordance with the rules contained in the Trust Deed and Constitution … read moreof MEWASS. MEWASS was gazetted and officially recognized as a water and sewerage system on June 15th 2002 and took over management of the Meru urban water provission and sewerage system on July 1st, 2002 from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and the Municipal Council of Meru. Presently, MEWASS Trust is mandated to provide water and sewerage services within Meru town and its environs covering 140 km2 under a Service Provision Agreement (SPA) with the Tana Water Services Board. The current SPA expires on June 21, 2016. The utility is now fully owned by the Meru County Government.
The Trust is managed by a board of registered trustees. The trustees are appointed by the following institutions:-
Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MW&I) – 1
County Government of Meru – 2
Maendeleo ya Wanawake – 1
National Youth Council – Meru County Branch – 1
Meru Central Farmers’ Co-operative Union – 1
Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Meru Branch – 1
National Council of Churches of Kenya – Meru Branch – 1
Muslim Association – Meru Branch – 1
OVERVIEW OF THE WATER SECTOR REFORM
The water sector has been implementing the sector reforms since 2003 with the aim of improving service delivery. The reforms brought about tremendous transformation in the legal and institutional set-up of the sector which has brought significant gains in the last ten years. The reforms were designed to address weaknesses in policy, regulation, service provision and water resources management. Water services regulation and pro-poor focus financing in the sector are some of the main achievements brought about by the reforms. In addition decentralization of key sector functions was done in water services provision.
The promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 (CoK 2010) has reinforced the aspirations of the water sector reforms and has further devolved the water supply functions, ring-fenced the water sector revenues and created opportunities for increased sector funding. Towards this, the Ministry of Water drafted a Water Bill, 2014 in order to align and give effect to the provisions of the Constitution. Under this water Bill, water services will be provided by county owned Water Service Providers (WSPs). The water sector established a Transition Implementation Plan and criteria for the transfer of functions that the counties are complying with (Legal Notice No. 16 of 2013).
Key to the sector transition has been ensuring that there is no disruption of services provision. Therefore the focus during the transition phase has been on ring-fencing of the sector revenues, capacity building at county level, improving funding mechanisms for the sector, monitoring, and coordination between the two levels of government. Key instruments that continue to guide the water sector in the new dispensation are the Constitution of Kenya 2010, Vision 2030 targets, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Human Rights to Water and Sanitation criteria and the principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).