Nigeria needs N400b to improve access to water, sanitation

Nigeria needs an annual investment of N400 billion to achieve Sustainable Development Goal on water for all by the year 2030, the WaterAid Country Director, Michael Ojo, has said.

Ojo who bemoaned the paltry 0.7percent allocated to the sector in the 2016 budgetary provision said that the budget was far lower than the 2.5 percent commitment that government signed to during electioneering campaign.
The Country Representative who spoke to some journalists in Abuja lamented the misdirection of the allotted funds, as most of the funds are channeled into provision of infrastructures rather than service delivery, and most of the infrastructures are underutilized and not delivering service to people.

Maintaining that there is chronic underinvestment in water, he said there was the need for a dramatic improvement in water, sanitation and hygiene as the government need to be investing between N400-600 billion every year for the next 15 years to achieve universal water coverage by the year 2030.

He said “there is chronic lack of investment in the provision of water services in Nigeria, money that needs to go into the sector to expand the sector is not going in. For instance in this year’s budget government earmarked N44 billion for the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, though it has doubled the N23 billion allocation for the sector in 2015, however it represent a paltry sum of what is required to increase access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in the country.”

Giving a breakdown of the 2016 appropriation to the sector, he said only 0.5 of the budget is appropriated for sanitation, 80 percent is for the provision of infrastructure while the remaining 15 percent is for recurrent expenditure.

He said most stakeholders in the sector are of the opinion that to move the sector forward, there was need to increase recurrent expenditure. He said Nigeria has a lot of infrastructures that are not being utilized and not delivering service to people.