Lagos State government has been urged to probe all loans and funding for the existing water system and infrastructure in the state throughout the tenures of the Governors Babatunde Fashola and Akinwunmi Ambode, including the N1.6 billion made available to the Lagos Water Corporation (LWC) in 2017 for the rehabilitation of mini and micro waterworks across the state.
This was said at a stakeholders’ dialogue tagged “The Lagos Water Crisis; setting agenda for the Sanwo-Olu administration in the water sector” and organised by the Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/ FoEN) and held in Lagos.
In his welcome address, the Chair, Board ERA/FoEN, Nnimmo Bassey, who was represented by the Deputy Executive Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi, pointed out that access to water is a free gift of nature and must not be allowed to be tampered with by corporations and private interests, whose only objective is to maximise profit at the expense of the people.
In his keynote address titled “The Lagos Water Crisis and the Imperative for Sustainable Solutions”, the Country Director of Plan International Nigeria, Dr. Hussaini Abdu, dwelt on human right to water which, he said, entitles everyone without discrimination to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses.
He concluded that privatisation has largely failed across the globe and that citizens must be part of the solutions since international financial institutions have never addressed municipal challenges.
On his part, the president, Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service, Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE), Comrade Benjamin Anthony, said that the budgetary allocation to the water sector is still abysmally low and does not reflect the much-talked about commitment of the government to address the challenge to access.
At the end of the dialogue, the group agreed that government should report massive corruption in the water sector across the states and at the national level, which are alarming and are yet to be probed. (The Nation)
