Managing Water Service Providers in Kenya, “a Case for Good Corporate Governance”

Abstract

At a time of diminishing sources of clean and portable water, effective management of the water sector is increasingly becoming a critical matter. As the population of Kenya grows steadily so will the demand for access to water, which is now recognized as a fundamental right under the Constitution. It is therefore necessary to adopt effective and efficient systems that will best ensure equitable and sustainable enjoyment of water resources. This research focuses on the role that good corporate governance in the water sector in Kenya can play toward this end. Corporate governance refers to the structures, processes and actors and the dynamic interactions among them that facilitate and influence decisions affecting a corporation. The motivation to carry out the research was as a result of the increasing dominance of corporate governance debates both in the local and international academic fora. The objective of this thesis is to understand and assess whether and, if so, the extent to which the corporate governance systems of water service providers in Kenya are effectively addressing the challenges posed by limited water resources. In order to discover this, the legal and policy framework is critically discussed from an historical perspective, with emphasis being placed on the merits and demerits. Using a comparative analysis of the experiences of water service management in three African countries, i.e. South Africa, Uganda and Ghana, the study identifies the best practices that should be adopted in Kenya as well as the pitfalls that should be avoided. In this regard, it may be concluded that the study is instructive because although there has been an attempt to improve governance in the water sector in Kenya, there is scope for improvement through borrowing best practices from other countries. The findings provide a new useful dimension on how to improve corporate governance in the water sector in Kenya.