Nairobi, June 23 -- Public water companies lost Sh14.9 billion on water that was not billed to customers in the 2024/25 financial year, revealing the persistent challenge of illegal connections, leakages, and weak metering systems.

In the 2023/24 period, public water firms lost an estimated Sh11.9 billion in non-revenue water (NRW), according to the Water Ministry.

An assessment by the Water Services Regulatory Board (Wasreb) shows that NRW averaged 48 percent of the volumes produced by service providers. NRW refers to water that is produced but not billed due to leaks, theft, meter errors, or weak billing systems.

"A persistent underlying challenge within the water services subsector remains the high level of NRW, which stood at 48 pe...