National Water Harvesting and Storage Authority

The Business Development Unit

Drilling of boreholes

The BDU has been involved in drilling works across all the country's counties with a bias towards the arid and semi-arid counties of Wajir, Mandera, Kitui, Machakos, Makueni and Western & Nyanza region counties.

 Plant/Equipment Hire (Watermaster/Dredging Plant)

One of the greatest hindrances to the full utilization of dams and pans is siltation which gradually reduces the storage capacity of dams and pans. A great number of dams and pans have not been silted since their construction especially because of lack of disilting equipment. The Corporation has one such disilting equipment which has been seeded to BDU to be hired out commercially for such purposes. A recent case of hire of this equipment was by Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) to remove water hyacinth on Lake Victoria. This machine has also been used in the past on Chinga dam in Ithaca and Bayete dam in Wareng.

 Construction of small dams and pans

The BDU has been engaging in the construction and supervision of dams and pans. There exists a wide market for such products especially with the advent of a devolved governance.

 Engineering Consultancy Services

The Corporation has a number of specialist professionals that could provide commercial consultancy services under the ambit of BDU which could be a potential source of revenue. Such specialists include: Engineers, Hydrogeologists, EIA Experts who could provide the following services: -

          - Ground water investigations

          - Design of small pan & dams

          - Design of water supply systems

          - Project supervision

          - Environmental audits.

Fleet Management

The rates of hire of such equipment are contained in the Exchequer and Audit Act (Cap 412) Legal Notice No. 53. This legal notice was only meant to cover the mechanical and transport fund operated by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure which is now being widely applied by all Government Ministries and Departments including Parastatals.

Hire of vehicles, plant and machineries takes into account both normal hire rates and dry hire rates. Dry hire rates are a situation where the vehicle or plant is leased out to the user without the operator and fuel. On the other hand, normal hire rates include machines, operator and fuel. BDU intends to adopt these rates in its fleet management process.