The National Irrigation Authority (NIA), led by its chief executive officer Charles Muasya, is preparing to roll out at least 20 dam projects as part of Kenya’s long-term strategy to reduce hunger by expanding irrigation and boosting food production. The task is particularly complex because some of the projects involve gravity dams, which require advanced engineering expertise.
As an agricultural and civil engineer, Mr Muasya possesses the technical skills needed to design and implement dams and irrigation projects. However, after more than three years at the helm of NIA, he has come to appreciate that delivering a dam requires far more than engineering knowledge.
For Kenya to achieve its irrigation ambitions, he says, technical expertise must be complemented by strong leadership, stakeholder engagement and innovative financing.
The World Bank says that in as much as the country really needs irrigation, the acreage under irrigation has stagnated at 1.6 percent. What is the challenge from your experience?
One of the major challenges over the years has been investment. Irrigation, like any other infrastructure project, is a high-cost venture, yet budget allocations have historically been minimal.
Around 2013, Kenya had about 450,000 acres under irrigation. Since then, we have increased that to about 770,000 acres through programmes such as the National Expanded Irrigation Programme and projects implemented across the country.
Another challenge that has emerged is dwindling water resources due to climate change. To move beyond the current acreage, Kenya must invest heavily in water harvesting and dam construction.
Our target is to increase irrigated land to between 1.2 million and 1.5 million acres over the next four years and eventually reach three million acres within the next seven years.
We have already identified about 20 major dams for irrigation. Water storage is the key to unlocking more land for irrigation and addressing food security. Most of the available land suitable for irrigation is in the arid and semi-arid areas, where the main constraint is water.
Which are some of the 20 dams that NIA intends to construct?
Among the key projects is the Galana Dam, which is expected to support irrigation on nearly 200,000 acres in Kilifi and Tana River counties. Another major project is the High Grand Falls Dam, which has the potential to bring between 400,000 and 450,000 acres under irrigation.
In Turkana, the proposed Lowaat Mega Dam could support between 50,000 and 56,000 acres, while the Radat Dam project in Baringo is expected to irrigate about 20,000 acres. We are also studying the possibility of utilising water from Lake Baringo through a tunnel system that could support another 50,000 acres.
The authority is exploring use of water from Turkwel Dam, originally developed for hydropower, to irrigate about 30,000 acres in Turkana and West Pokot counties. In Migori, the proposed Gogo Dam on River Kuja would increase irrigated acreage from 19,000 acres to about 50,000 acres.
Other projects include Koru-Soin Dam, which could expand irrigation in Ahero to between 20,000 and 25,000 acres.
In the Mount Kenya region, Thiba Dam has largely reached its storage capacity. We are exploring additional storage infrastructure, including the proposed Thuci Dam in Embu County, which could bring another 40,000 to 50,000 acres under irrigation through a PPP framework. There are also plans involving High Grand Falls, Kevianu Dam and the irrigation component of Thwake Dam.
What is the role of PPP as a financing strategy for irrigation?
PPP is becoming increasingly important. Galana is a good example. We successfully onboarded Selu Limited, which is already producing on 10,000 acres.
However, when we moved to the Galana Dam project to do it as a PPP, we encountered a financing gap. The revenue expected from water sales could not fully finance the roughly $300 million project. We therefore restructured the project and adopted a deferred-payment model, where the contractor finances construction and is repaid over time by the government.
Has the shift from the National Irrigation Board to National Irrigation Authority improved your performance?
Yes. Under the previous law, we were restricted to seven public irrigation schemes—Hola, Bura, Mwea, Pekerra, Ahero, West Kano and Bunyala. That was our legal mandate.
When we became an authority, our mandate expanded to cover the entire country. Projects such as Galana, High Grand Falls and many others would not have been possible under the previous framework.
Does being the CEO of a highly technical organisation such as NIA also require you to be highly technical in your qualifications as in your case?
Running a technical institution such as the National Irrigation Authority (NIA) requires much more than engineering expertise. While NIA is a highly technical organisation, it serves a largely non-technical society whose main expectation is service delivery.
As chief executive, I have come to realise that almost 90 percent of the qualities required at this level are soft skills—how you relate with people, connect different stakeholders and bring them together to get the agenda accomplished.
For example, if farmers are not getting enough irrigation water, my role is not to sit down and start calculating water requirements.
Instead, I must determine whether the challenge lies in water distribution, management capacity or the teams responsible for delivering the water and then make informed decisions.
The reason this is important is we have had the debate in the road agencies quite often, with engineers insisting that it should be headed by one of their own. What do you think?
Having technical skills is an added advantage because it puts you in a better position to make decisions quickly. Without a technical background, you often have to rely heavily on advisers or engineers to explain issues before decisions can be made.
However, at the end of the day, you do not have to be an engineer to lead. Engineers need to appreciate that leadership is not about belonging to a particular profession.
You did agricultural engineering for your undergraduate. Do we really, as a society, appreciate the role that engineering as a profession can play in transforming this country?
Engineering remains underappreciated despite the critical role it plays in development. When you look at the number of engineers who have risen to leadership and decision-making positions in Kenya, they are still relatively few.
One challenge is that many engineers tend to approach issues from a purely technical perspective, making it difficult for them to penetrate decision-making spaces. Yet engineers are already running many important institutions and agencies.
If you had one policy change and one budget allocation granted tomorrow, what would make the biggest difference?
The biggest issue is funding major dam projects. If annual allocations increased from about Sh6 billion to Sh20 billion, it would make a significant difference.
At the same time, we need to make it easier for private investors to come into the water sector by revising the PPP framework. We must create incentives that attract investors. Most investors are comfortable investing in roads and power projects, but very few are willing to invest in water infrastructure.
That is an area where policy reforms could make a huge difference.
