No water project completed in past 15 years, says minister

• Unveils roadmap for sector

The Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, has disclosed that in the last 15 years, no water project was fully completed and commissioned.

Lamenting the poor state of the water sector, he said that as at 2015, the administration inherited outstanding liabilities to contractors handling some ongoing water projects to the tune of N88.8bn.

He disclosed this during the public presentation of a roadmap for the water sector, tagged: ‘Immediate and Long-Term Strategies for Water Sector, 2016 – 2030’, in Abuja, stressing that the ministry would focus on the completion of all ongoing projects.

Disclosing that N264.9billion would be required to complete the projects, he said outstanding liabilities inherited from the ministry’s main projects was N67.8billion, while N20billion was from the River Basin Development projects.

“It is imperative to change the trend to achieve 100 per cent access to water supply for our citizens by the year 2030 when the population is estimated to grow to about 257 million,” he said.

Adamu stated that out of the 116 ongoing water sector projects, 38 were for irrigation and water drainage, 37 for dams and 41 for water supply.