Factors influencing revenue generation in rural water projects in Nyahururu District: a case of Marmanet Water Supply

Abstract

Rural water supply schemes in Kenya are faced with myriad managerial challenges. Meeting revenue collection targets is one of the challenges that have exposed rural water supply schemes to uncertainties in sustainability and in meeting the project goals. Revenue generation and collection are the key functions of management in rural water supply schemes. In all enterprises as in rural water projects, recurrent expenditure is met by the recurrent revenue generated on daily bases. Failure to generate or collect revenue is a catastrophe that manifests in stalled operation in an enterprise as a result of unpaid salaries, poor service delivery and stalled projects. This study is about addressing the factors that influence generation of revenue in rural water projects with a view to establishing mechanisms to overcome this challenge .Four factors have been identified as the key elements directly influencing revenue generation.

They include: Management style adopted in running the project, income levels of the consumers, the tariff structure, and Water supply levels. It has been established that the management style practiced by the service provider has had significant positive impact on revenues generated in the area under this study over the years. The descriptive statistics for the operation data sourced from the company records have displayed a rising trend in all the parameters considered. This is an indicator of good performance of the company management in the period under review. The answers given by the respondents to questions on levels of service delivery by the company were all satisfactory.

The amount of water bill incurred by individual water consumers has been used as a proxy for the amount of revenue generated. Table 4.13 indicates a significant association between the amount of monthly income and the amount of water bill incurred. There exists a moderate association between the quantity of water consumed and the average water bill incurred .There is however no evidence of association between continuous supply of water and amount of water consumed. This implies that water supply levels have no influence on the amount of revenue generated.