Firm compliance to regulatory enforcement of industrial wastewater standards in Kenya

Regulatory enforcement and industrial non-compliance are very familiar issues in environmental protectlon and water resource management. Current thinking recognizes the insufficiency of the traditional regulatory enforcement structures that are based orthodox deterrence theory. There are, therefore increasing shlfts among some industrialized countrles towards "new regulatory reglmes" that focus on management styles, and forms of selfregulation, based on innovatlve and incentive devlce. However, the orthodox instruments remain the principie means for regulatory enforcement among many developing countries. Our goal in this paper ¡s to examine the effects of these (traditional) regulatory enforcement instruments on firm' compliance to wastewater standards in Kenya. We (i) examine the state of wastewater regulatory compliance and infractlons; (ii) construct and estímate a model of enforcement incidence based on monitorlng, inspections, warning letters, and court prosecutions; and (iii) discuss the linkages in the enforcement framework, and behaviour of firms). We use primary and secondary data from 53 industrial plants across 5 urban areas. The results of our model help us to identify flaws In the existing regulatory and enforcement "reglme".