As part of efforts to ensure water gets to residents regularly, the Niger State Government has disclosed that it will block all avenues of water leakage and non revenue.
The Commissioner for Water Resources and Dams Development, Yusuf Suleiman, who expressed surprise at the rate of wastage during an inspection of facilities and materials delivered to Niger State Water Board under the United States Agency for International Development Effective Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme, said: “The Government has drawn a line to fix the challenges by the end of March 2020.”
This, the government said, will curb all forms of commercial theft, where vandals break pipes, thereby leading to illegal deals.
Reacting to the percentage of water loss, which was earlier put at 76 per cent, but recently as a result of government’s intervention reduced to 66 per cent, Suleiman said: “We have a long way to go, but we have drawn a line that by the end of this month (March), we must ensure we identify these leakages and our people get water.
“We are going to look at all these losses holistically so that very soon we can become independent and not go to the government for financial assistance.
“With the support of the E-WASH Programme funded by USAID, pipes, fittings, plumbing tools, protective clothings, data base server and tablets have been delivered to the NSWB as a result of us (Government) meeting the required milestones.
“We have upgraded power supply from 11kv to 33kv at the Water Board headquarters.
“We have renovated central laboratory, non-revenue unit, sanitation unit, customer care unit, monitoring and evaluation unit, gender and pro-poor unit for better service delivery.”
While commending the E-WASH Programme funded by USAID, the Commissioner said: “The project is the best thing that could ever happen to the water sector.
“We are ready to work with people who are passionate about water service delivery in the state.”
Speaking also, the General Manager, NSWB, Engr. Hassan Chado, said one of the Board’s cardinal objective was to curb non revenue water and leakages, adding: “With the delivery of materials by USAID E-WASH to the Board, these challenges will soon be a thing of the past.”
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