Water Scarcity: Governor To Revive Kaduna State Water Corporation

The Kaduna State Governor in Northwest Nigeria, Uba Sani has initiated efforts to revive the Water Corporation, to ensure access to clean and portable water for the citizens.

This commitment was highlighted by the State Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr. Ibrahim Hamza Soba, during a press conference in Kaduna.

He said the Governor had allocated over N600 million in November and December 2023, to the state for water supply facilities.

He stated that, upon his assumption of office in 2023, the administration met a lot of challenges.

The Commissioner expressed dismay that a lot of investment has gone into the water facility. 200 million dollars has been committed to the sector before the present administration came on board, and yet the issue of water supply is still not tackled.

He said; “We realised as at the time we came to power, the capacity utilization of our facilities was less than eight per cent. Our revenue collection, our billing system, our connection system, the plant, and the whole three to four components of the sector were not working.

“So the government has to remodel the whole structure. We had to go back to the drawing board and identify our mistakes in the past to see where we had gone wrong and why things were this way.”

The commissioner disclosed that the state is doing well.

“We have other interventions coming up from the federal Ministry of Water Resources. We are trying to develop an Urban Investment Master plan.”

Last week, we did the final draft review.

We also have a low-hanging fruit, which is the budget line under the WASH program, which is also a World Bank project, which we are going to get some funding.

The Kaduna State government is also willing to make some commitment to see that the whole water system, especially the urban water supply system, challenges come to an end.

“The new management of Kaduna State Water Corporation, KADSWAC, is working hard. They are trying to undo some damages that were done by the urban renewable which took place some three or four years back where a lot of pipes were vandalized and that is why some areas that used to have water, are no longer having access to the supply of water.”

“So going forward, we are hopeful that some of these things will be revived, and we are going to see some level of progress. He added.

“Although, at the end of 2023, some part of the state have experienced progress in water supply due to the intervention by the government.

“I can assure the public that we have almost finished all the strategies, and only implementation is left now,” Soba added

Shakirat Sadiq