Nigeria Needs N6trn To Boost Water Infrastructure

BY EDMOND ODOK – Minister of Water Resources, Mr Suleiman Adamu, says Nigeria needs a whopping six trillion Naira to meet the huge demands for water supply infrastructure in the country.

Adamu however acknowledged that major challenges currently hindering sustainable development of Nigeria’s water sector include funding, poor water governance, and obsolete infrastructure among others.

According to him, the Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Hygiene (SURWASH) programme is therefore expected to provide six million people with basic drinking water services and 1.4 million people access to improved sanitation services.

Addressing participants at the 28th Regular Meeting of the National Council on Water Resources in Abuja on Tuesday, the Minister said the forum presents an opportunity to discuss developments in the nation’s water sector, evaluate issues, address identified challenges, and chart a way forward towards resolving contemporary challenges.

Adamu, who spoke on the theme, “Emerging Financial and Management Challenges for Sustainable Water Infrastructure in Nigeria”, said a review of water governance, sustainable financing, pricing for water services was being considered.

He said resolutions from the last council meeting saw the need for states to key into the current Partnership for Expanded Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (PEWASH) initiative of the Federal Government, adding that the project is being piloted in some states in a performance approach through the provision of separate budget lines in the state rural agency of water supply and sanitation agencies.

The Minister also said the World Bank had committed 700 million dollars to support Nigeria in its National WASH Action plan towards revitalisation of the sector through the SURWASH programme.

“SURWASH is expected to provide six million people with basic drinking water services and 1.4 million people access to improved sanitation services. The programme will deliver improved WASH services to 2,000 schools and healthcare facilities and assist communities to achieve open defecation-free status’’, he said

In his intervention, UNICEF WASH Manager, Mr Oumar Dombouya, said the 2019 National Outcome Routine Mapping of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Service Levels (WASH-NORM), showed that 30 per cent of the people in Nigeria (60 million people) do not have access to clean water.

He said UNICEF has been offering support to change this narrative through Village Level Operation and Maintenance to improve the functionality and sustainability of water facilities across the country.

Dombouya assured that the UN Agency remains committed to supporting durable and cost-effective interventions towards ensuring Nigeria meets its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target by 2030.

Also speaking at the event, National Consultant, Public Health and Environment, representing the WHO Nigeria Country Representative, Dr Edwin Isotu-Edeh, said it was worrisome that one in three persons still lack access to basic drinking water globally.

Harping on the need to democratise access to Water Supply and Sanitation Hygiene (WASH) services in the county, Isotu-Edeh said states must emulate what is being done at the federal level to ensure sustainability, adding; “States can emulate what was being done by the federal government, ad all stakeholders ought to put water as a key component of all interventions’’.

On his part, Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Dr Mohammed Bello, said the provision of clean and safe clean drinking water to FCT residents was a top priority of the Federal Government through the FCT Administration.

The Minister, who was represented by Mr Olusade Adesola, listed challenges of population explosion, inadequate funding amongst others, saying implementable policies were underway to address this need.

He said; “The water sector is faced with old and emerging challenges that have prevented us from emerging our target in this sector, providing infrastructure for regular water supply is very capital intensive.

“While the projected population of the FCT by the year 2020 ought to be 3 million, the actual population as at 2018 and 2019 had risen to six million, this has placed enormous demand and pressure on significant resources to meet the infrastructural need.

“That is why you see new territories, layouts, districts are being opened without the corresponding provision of infrastructural facilities’’.

The Minister, who said work was ongoing to complete the greater Abuja Water Supply Project, disclosed that it was a bilateral initiative to enhance water supply to 33 districts in the FCT, even as he explained that the government was also involved with activities aimed at improving access to potable water supply for Abuja residents in partnership with the Organised Private Sector (OPS). – With NAN reports