Centum, an investment firm based in Kenya has signed a $3.2 million deal with the Dubai-based water management solutions firm, Metito (Overseas) Ltd to set up a seawater desalination plant. The contractor has one-year to hand over the plant to Centum.
The plant will be set near Centum’s proposed multi-billion-shilling housing project in the coastal town of Kilifi. An area that has historically, faced a serious shortage of drinking water, thereby making it generally unsuitable for the mass establishment of residential and commercial properties.
Now that Centum is eyeing to set up some real estate properties in the area. It had to look for a solution for the chronic drinkable water shortage in the area, and it didn’t have to look further than the plentiful blue Indian Ocean waters. The only problem with that water is that it is salty and unsuitable for human consumption.
Metito Ltd. was roped into the project given they have a long-standing history and experience in desalinating water and at the same time produces water and wastewater treatment systems. The firm has until September 2019 to hand over the completed project to Centum.
Once up and running, the water desalination plant will have a daily drinkable water output of 3,000 cubic meters. As mentioned earlier, Centum is setting up the desalination plant on its 10,254-acre land, where it intends to set up a mega infrastructural development project dubbed the Vipingo Development. This establishment is targeting the growing high-class and middle-class economy looking for residential and commercial buildings.
“Our strategy at Vipingo is to mater develop sites and provide commercial impetus for investors to establish new urban nodes,” said Centum in its annual report for the financial year ending March 2018 that was published in August.
The coastal region in Kenya is a top resort site, but the tourism and hospitality industry has had to maneuver around the problem of lack of drinkable water one way or the other; often expensively. With Centum’s plant, this problem could be alleviated given the ready availability of ocean water in the region.
The largest resort city in Kenya, the coastal city of Mombasa, has not even one source of fresh water. It relies on water from far outside the city such as the Mzima Springs in Taita Taveta, Marere Water Supply in Kwale County, and the Baricho plant.
