Murang'a homes to get cheap cooking gas

Murang’a residents might in the next few months buy cooking gas at half the market price.

This is if plans by the Murang’a Water and Sanitation Company (Muwasco) to develop a biogas plant in Murang’a town by next year come to fruition.

“We will treat the sewerage deposits using microbial and chemical engineering technologies to end up with clean cooking gas that will be 50 per cent cheaper than the liquefied petroleum gases in the market,” said Managing Director Daniel Ng’ang’a.

He said the engineering processes that will be used in generating the cooking gas will also generate electricity, part of which will be connected to the national grid.

“We project that initially; we will generate at least six megawatts of power. We can use half of it to light up nearby homesteads as well as light up market centres and several roads through street lighting projects. The remainder of the megawatts can be sold out to the national grid,” said Mr Ng’ang’a.

He said the project will create at least 200 new jobs as well as generate revenues to sustain Mowasco that is currently not funded by the Government. 

Independent path

Even though water companies in the country are co-owned by county and central governments and where operational bills are footed by budgetary allocations, Muwasco has charted an independent path, where it creatively generates its revenues. 

“Besides selling services to our clients, we also package our mineral water for the market to boost our incomes. This sewerage recycling plant is another front that will boost our financial muscle,” said Ng’ang’a.

The MD said government departments must wake up to the reality that the exchequer can’t continue funding them. 

“New challenges that demand funding from the same exchequer are coming up every day. We should embrace managerial acumen that seeks to generate revenues without necessarily imposing new taxes on our people,” he said. 

“There are limits on how the Government can depend on the taxman for budgetary survival. We have so many virgin opportunities that if explored and exploited can generate even more cash than the national budget can allocate.”    

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