Water wells in Wajir town are drying up and people are “thirsty” for change

WAJIR—In Wajir, the wells are drying up leaving homesteads with no domestic use.

The locals believe that two water companies have “gobbled up the water” after they drilled boreholes in the town.

Town resident blame county government for taking long to address the situation. Photo/ Courtesy

Ibrahim Yussuf is a donkey cart operator. He uses his donkey cart to ferry water to households within the town at a cost of sh20 for a 20-litre jerry can.

Before the water crisis hit Wajir town, he used to provide three meals a day for his young family as well as shoulder other daily expenses, but not anymore.

“It has become hard to provide for my family now because the wells have run dry,” the 45-year old father says.

He blamed two water companies in the town for his woes. “They came with big machineries and depleted the water resource in the town. They have taken away our jobs,” a frustrated Ibrahim observed.
Wajir has not experienced such a crisis in recent history. Even during the severe 2010/11 drought, the historic Orahey wells served as the only reliable water source in the NFD region.

We went to check if the water companies were actually the cause of the crisis. We visited Glacier Water Company in the north of the town.

There we met with the plant supervisor Josiah Keter. He is the man in charge of the main plant. We asked the problem and if the rumours doing round were true.

He denied the claims, saying Glacier gets its water supply from a shallow well of 23-feet and runs on a daily production of 20,000 cubicles.

“People out there believe that we have a rig here. It’s false,” he said.

Mr. Keter instead blamed the expansion of the town and a growing population. True to his word, the town has significantly expanded in the last three years with permanent buildings coming up where once stood Somali huts.

The water crisis has since turned into an emotional subject laced with fear since Wajir has no any other natural water source to turn if the wells dry up.

“We don’t have to subscribe to any kind of myth,”Abdinoor Hussein, the county Chief Officer for Water, Environment and Natural Resources said.

“The fact remains that we have a general climatic change,” he noted.

He said the drilling of the boreholes have nothing to do with dried up wells, instead blaming the crisis on population growth which he said added to the daily water consumption.

“Also the people have settled on water recharge points,” Abdinoor added.

The county administration now banks on the Merti aquifer to save Wajir town from total water crisis if the next rainy season fails.

However, the communities around the Merti aquifers are against the project, saying the county government has neglected them.

The Habaswein community, led by the area member of county assembly Adan Mohamud, is not ready to share water with Wajir town.

“We are not ready to share because it’s not enough,” the MCA said, adding that the former Wajir East MP and now the Tarbaj MP Mohamed Elmi used his power then to move an abattoir meant for Habaswein to Tarbaj leaving the town “orphaned”.

The MCA said he does not believe in the satellite data provided by Governor Ahmed Abdullahi saying it was doctored. The data revealed that Merti aquifer holds enough water to last for decades to come.

“It was tampered with to gain sympathy from the people, but I want him to take this to the bank: Habaswein water will never be piped to Wajir. Never,” he said.

Other areas also earmarked to be piped water from are Ganyurey, Kontoma and Wagalla.

“We are in talks with the World Bank to source water from outside Wajir town,” Abdinoor said.