Nigeria faces a huge challenge sustaining its water resource, projected to reduce from 2,506 cubic metres yearly from 1995 to 1,175 cubic metres in 2025, if not well managed. States, such as Lagos, are, however, taking the bull by the horns to provide potable water through public-private partnership (PPP). But, at what cost is this to the masses? Assistant Editor MUYIWA LUCAS asks.
In 1981, the late Afro beat king, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, released one of his greatest hits: Original Suffer Head. In the album, Fela tried to capture the people’s sufferings in their struggle to get four essentials of life – water, food housing and light.
Thirty-six years after this album, Nigerians’ struggle for these necessities has become more intense, with the hope of gettingthese essentials fading.
More elusive in this search is safe drinking water. Indeed, water is a vital resource that constitutes a strategic issue. It attracts the attention of the entire international community who now facilitates access to and management of safe drinking water. The importance of water is further accentuated with its inclusion in the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Nigeria is endowed with water sources spread across various locations from the coastal region to the arid zone, yet harnessing the huge water and sanitation for the populace remains the lowest in the world.
According to stakeholders in the water industry, more than 66 million Nigerians do not have access to potable water. This is despite the fact that the three levels of government – federal, state and local are entrusted with the responsibility for water supply. The Federal Government is in charge of water resources management; state governments have the primary responsibility for urban water supply, ditto local governments while communities are responsible for rural water supply.
At present, Nigeria is not on track in hitting the MDG for water and sanitation. Initially, the country had envisioned that by 2015, 74 per cent of the population would have been supplied with safe water – a target it never met. With the slow pace of progress, the target may not even be met in the next 20 years.
Experts agree that efforts are needed if the situation is to improve. This is why the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) has supported rural water supply, sanitation and hygiene in communities and schools across the country since 2002. UNICEF’s interventions have been financed by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the European Commission. A total of 6,960 new safe water sources (boreholes-dug – wells and protected springs) and over 19,100 household latrines have been constructed. Over 400 schools have been provided with latrines with separate provision for boys and girls and hand washing facilities.
But these interventions seem to be a drop in the ocean. Few months ago, the state was hit by acute water shortage. This is notwithstanding the presence of diverse water bodies that surround the state.
The Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Babatunde Adejare, said the presence of these water bodies does not stop the state from experiencing what every other cosmopolitan city contends particularly the aspect of access to safe water.
This, he said, was the reason the state government had been investing heavily in the water sector. He said the Lagos water project, which is anchored on a 15-year expansion programme is not limited to the urban areas alone as it is the desire of the state government to ensure that every part of the state has unrestricted access to potable water supply. The project entails the rehabilitation and expansion of water supply facilities, transmission and distribution systems, improved administrative infrastructure and institutional support.
The first phase of the project, being coordinated by the Lagos State Water Corporation (LSWC), involves the construction of 15 mini- micro water works that have can produce 30 million gallons daily across various parts of the state to improve accessibility. However, the long-term plan is to resuscitate the Adiyan and Iju water works, which can produce 230 million gallons daily, if fully operational.
Adejare explained that the other part of the long-term plan is to encourage private sector participation in the water sector. This explains why it is investing heavily in the sector to make it attractive to private investors who will subsequently device creative strategies that will make the sector lucrative for investment.
He explained that globally, funding of government programmes and projects can no longer be sustained by the government alone, hence the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiative. It is a contractual relationship between the private and public sectors. It is a collaboration geared towards ensuring communal, state or national socio-economic development that is comprehensive and self-sustaining. It is an arrangement with direction and defined roles and responsibilities of all the actors in the plan. It is also a financial module designed to attract private investors to engage in infrastructural projects with short and long term benefits to the people.
However, the PPP issue has drawn the ire of the public who are of the opinion that by so doing government increases the burden on the people. They are livid that the government is abdicating its responsibility of water provision to the citizenry.
Besides, they frowned at the recent decision to regulate haphazard bore hole drilling as well as certify borehole construction and regulate the practice.
To the citizens, it is absurd that if they have to provide water for themselves. Why then should the government levy or tax them for doing so? they asked. Yet, to the government, the decision is to regulate and standardise the operation of drillers in the sector; it is mainly aimed at ensuring that best practice is strictly followed for health factors.
Adejare has since been clarifying this, explaining that the government has not introduced charges for water consumption from boreholes, neither has it criminalised the sinking of boreholes.
The sinking of boreholes and water charges and the environment Protection and Management Law, he said, recently signed by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode would not hinder the people’s access to good and potable water.
He explained that for commercial users of borehole, some measure of control and charges were applicable as water is a resource that must be protected. At the moment, he said, the state charges about five kobo per litre of water. He defined commercial use of borehole as the consumption of minimum of 50 drums daily, adding that no individual or household could use 50 drums of water daily, except for commercial purpose. Therefore, he said, only commercial users, such as soft drink manufacturers, and water production plant owners would be asked to pay.
The requirement for permit, he argued, should not be misconstrued for indiscriminate charges, adding that registration of boreholes was necessary for the government to have an inventory of sources and quality of water used by the people in the state and track sources of pollution of the underground water.
“The essence of obtaining permit is not pecuniary but to create and enhance a database of boreholes, ascertain quality of water being consumed by Lagosians and track the sources of underground water pollution. Water is a resource that ought to be protected and this is why the government recognises the need to minimise the pollution of the underground water by controlling indiscriminate sinking of boreholes,” he said.
According to him, no government would allow uncontrolled pollution of the underground water through indiscriminate sinking of boreholes as they are windows into the aquifer. “By controlling the sinking of boreholes, we would have done a lot to curtail the outbreak of water borne diseases,” he stressed.
He said further that the law on water charges was not new as it had been in existence since 2004, to control indiscriminate sinking of boreholes.
In adopting this strategy, the government is not abdicating its reoles, but essentially releasing scarce resources for other important projects to create a win-win situation for the government and the private enterprise. The major advantage of the involvement of the private sector in governance is the efficiency it brings to project management.
The issue of wastes, delayed delivery and abandonment associated with public projects is highly minimised. This is as a result of the optimisation of the returns on huge investment of the private sector.
In Africa, PPP model in water supply can be traced to 1959 with the implementation of the Cote d’Ivoire urban water Affermage – a successful operation that continues to provide water to over seven million people.
In Ghana, the private sector is involved in urban and small-town water provision as the government strives to improve access to water supply services for its citizens in line with sustainable development goals.
Between 2001 and 2013, in Niger Republic, the PPP model has improved access to potable water supply.
In Nigeria, many state governments have opted for the PPP model in water supply.
Across the globe, many countries are also rooting for the PPP model in water supply.
For instance, in the United States, United Kigdom (UK), Brazil, Philippines, Haiti, China, Germany, Mexico, Australia, Morocco, Romania, among others, the PPP model is in vogue.
When considered that yearly population growth rate in Europe is only about 0.22 per cent compared to three per cent of Sub-Saharan Africa, it is quite imperative that African states urgently seek alternative means of funding infrastructure development in the water sector.
