Kaduna govt injects over N100bn to ensure steady water supply  — Commissioner

The Kaduna state government has injected over N100bn to ensure steady water supply.

The Commissioner of Public Works and Infrastructure, Arc Ibrahim Hamza, who disclosed this at the Quarterly Ministerial Press Briefing at Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, however said that the Governor has overcome most of the challenges in this sector.

Arc Hamza disclosed that this administration paid all the salary arrears of the Kaduna Water Corporation staff, amounting to N800 million as well as settled outstanding electricity bill of N1.3 billion.

“This year, we are reaching and spending over 100 billion naira injecting in the water sector here. And by December, we are hopeful, which is the fourth quarter, we are going to have 100% water supply, which is within the capacity, our efficiency of all our plants,” he said.

On roads, he said Governor Uba Sani inherited liabilities of unpaid contractors, over invoicing and lack of documentation in roads construction, as well as low capacity utilisation in the water sector.

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To tackle this sector too, Arc Hamza pointed out that the present administration thought out-of-the box and came up with workable solutions that enabled the continuation of inherited projects and the initiation of new ones.

“Since the coming of this administration in the last 22 months, the government of Senator Uba Sani has done remarkably well. We have tried, notwithstanding the bedevilling challenges and obstacles that we encountered in the Ministry itself and all the parastatals.

“We have largely overcome almost all the challenges that we met. These challenges are not limited to liabilities inherited, vandalization, lack of proper documentation. Contracts were awarded without documentation. Some were over-inflated and there were no records.

“So, we had to just sit down, thought out-of-the-box, and to see how we can remedy all these things. So, we are battling between the challenge of remedying the wrongs that were created in the past and making progress. But thank God, everything is going well,’’ he said.

The Commissioner however said that the Governor Uba Sani administration has awarded 78 road projects, totalling 775 kilometers, in the last 21 months in spite of the challenges.

According to him, 21 of these roads ‘’have already been completed and have been put into use, thereby creating more economic activities across the 23 local governments.’’

“Last week, we also launched the completion of the Kaduna Bridge from Kabala Costain to Aliyu Makama Road, which will decongest traffic on the major road artery of Ahmadu Bello Way-Junction Road,’’ he added.

 

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE