The Minister of Water Resources, Engineer Suleiman Hussein Adamu on Thursday disclosed that the $150 million African Development Bank (AfDB) Assisted Rural Water Supply and Sanitation projects in the North East suffered a major setback over unabated activities of insurgency and other factors in the country.
The Minister stated this during an interactive session with the House of Representatives Committee on Aids, Loans, and Debt Management, chaired by Hon. Safana Dayyabu.
The breakdown of the facility showed that the sum of $5.9 million is for Federal Ministry of Water Resources; $33 million for Adamawa State; $29 million for Bauchi State; $38 million for Borno State; $16 million for Gombe State; $16 million for Taraba State Government while $12 million is unallocated.
According to the document presented to the Committee, the Minister stated that the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) component of the programme is being financed by a $150 million loan at both the federal and state levels.
He said: “It is worthy to note that, each state is directly responsible for the program implementation while Federal Ministry of Water Resources carries out oversight and quality assurance
“The entire programme has following three main components: service delivery, economic recovery, and institutional strengthening
“The specific objective of the program is to improve the quality of life by increasing access of the poor and vulnerable to basic social services in water, sanitation, hygiene, health, and education; livelihood opportunities, food security and strengthened safety net system in affected states in the North East.”
He however disclosed that, while implementation units at both states and federal levels are striving hard, they were not able to achieve the expected planned objectives within the scheduled time due to constraints.
According to him, the first disbursement of funds was made 18 months after the loan agreement was signed, which led to the delay in procurement activities.
He said that another constraint was the lack of understanding of AfDB’s mode of operations at the outset, especially at the states.
According to him, “The insurgency in parts of Borno and Adamawa states made it difficult for service providers as well as program staff to gain access to some LGAs and communities within the two states
“This is expected to be improved owing to the recent government decision. Finally, without any doubt, the advent of COVID-19 pandemic contributes gravely in delaying implementation of the programme”.
The Minister further stated that the awards of contracts for the infrastructure provision commenced in 2020 across the participating states and the physical presence of the programme is becoming noticeable and yielding the desired results.
“Series of procurement documents for additional facilities construction across the participating sector and states as well as soft activities and livelihood support is currently undergoing review by the AfDB,” he added.
Similarly, the minister said, the Programme to rehabilitate and strengthen the resilience of Socio-Ecological Systems in the Lake Chad Basin (PRESIBALT) is to alleviate poverty in the area.
“It is a regional five-year programme derived from the Five Year Investment Plan of the Lake Chad Basin Commission developed after the Roundtable conference in Bologna on April 4-5, 2014.
“The goal of the Five years investment plan is to improve the resilience of vulnerable populations who depend on the natural resources of Lake Chad Basin in Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria, Central African Republic, and Chad,” he added.
After the submission, Hon. Safana explained that the essence of the interactive session was to ascertain and avail Nigerians of where the loans being approved are being used.
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