Lagos State Reaffirms Issuance Of Regulatory Permit To Borehole Drillers

Lagos State government has again affirmed its position on issuance of regulatory permit for borehole drillers operating in the state.

The move according to the state is to avoid the depletion of groundwater resources, effective water governance, management and appropriate regulations by the authority.

At a stakeholders’ engagement organised by the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources and Lagos State Water Regulatory Commission, LASWARCO, Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr Tokunbo Wahab, said that it is important to realise the benefits of consuming clean water and the consequences of doing otherwise, stressing that government must protect the water space particularly the ground water.

Wahab said that water is a common resource that it’s environmental sustenance lies on its management and regulations and all critical stakeholders must be aware of the guidelines set by the government to achieve this goal.

“The very first thing is to understand the fact that we need to treat ground water as a rear resource. It is such an important resource of the state that we need to manage in a sustainable manner.

“So we are calling on players in the water space, drillers, to work with government together we are going to a destination that works for everybody. You need a license from the regulatory commission, we want to know who is doing what and where, it’s based on class, if you’re in class A, this is what you can do”.

Wahab who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Office of Water Resources and Drainage Services, Mr Mahmood Adegbite, called on stakeholders to collaborate with the state to manage ground water resources, harping on the need to start using data to deal with issues.

Enforcement and Compliance

Executive Secretary of LASWARCO, Mrs Funke Adepoju noted that the move was necessary to ensure regulations are adhered to and enforcement will be strengthened to allow total compliance by all stakeholders to safeguard the environment.

“The essence of the stakeholders meeting is to say let us assume we do not know so, we are telling you and telling the world this is what operates in Lagos, the Regulatory Commission is not to punish anyone, but to ensure compliance with regulatory provisions as mandated by the law within the state.”

“They need a license as a driller and secondly whoever is having commercial borehole needs a permit, eventually when you finished drilling, we need to have a borehole completion report, from those reports state can gather data for planning and we expect that the borehole should also have identification plate that will be issued by the commission and probably with Qr Code. You can put it out there, anytime anybody needs a data, it also supports data. We need to do water audit to know what they are taking we have to safe the environment, because it’s the main resource that they use, they need to operate responsibility within Lagos State.”

In his presentation, a Professor from the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Olufemi Idowu described the engagement as an opportunity to take informed decision and a trajectory to promote sustainable development.

Ensuring guidelines

While speaking on the Socio-Economic impact of unregulated ground water abstraction in a sedimentary terrain, A case of Lagos State, Idowu said that “If Groundwater is not regulated with increasing population over exploitation water quantity will diminish”.

He said “The commission must put a lot of things in place, to ensure that the guidelines are effective is not enough to put guidelines in place, must be effective so as to make the purpose for which we have put in place and one of the ways is this kind of engagement and then the need to make the people understand that it’s for their own benefits “.