Invest in water supply infrastructure, FG tells govs

The Minister of Water Resources, Alhaji Suleiman Adamu, has
urged state governments to invest massively in water supply
infrastructure to support the efforts to treat and transmit water
to the cities.

Adamu gave the advice at the News Agency of Nigeria Forum in
Abuja.

“There is still need for large capital investment to set up new
scheme to rehabilitate the old scheme and upgrade them so that it
can be functional.

“Our main role as Federal Government is to provide board cut
which we have been doing by building many dams.

“Even before then I know that there are quite a number of dams
that we build that are still laying fallow, waiting for the state
to now build water treatment facility and transmit to the city,
which is not being done,’’ he said.

According to the minister, ordinarily and constitutionally, the
Federal Government has nothing to do with actual provision of water
supply to the tap.

“This is the responsibility of state governments and local
governments.

“But over the years, state governments have failed to make
necessary investments commensurate with our population growth and
technology and there is no capacity building in water agencies.

According to him, the Federal Ministry of Water Resources does
not have water board. So, this failure to invest is a major
cause.

“There is no state or city in this country that can boast of 100
per cent piped borehole water supply, none.

“Some certain areas have access; probably Abuja has the best but
even Abuja there is need for more investment because a lot of areas
are not covered.

“Although infrastructure for producing the water such as
treatment plant is available in Usuma Dam, which is augmenting
water from Gurara Dam, the fact is that in other cities, this is
not available,’’ he said.

Adamu said that one of the few states that were making serious
efforts were Lagos and Kano states and to some extent, Kaduna
State.

(NAN)

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