Prominent among this are the approval granted the National Water Master Plan by the Federal Executive Council, the stakeholders’ public hearing on the water sector bill and the granting of water use permit to water vendors by the federal government.
The importance of these activities in the on-going efforts to increase access of Nigerians to clean and safe water cannot be over-emphasised.
According to recent statistics from WaterAid, the international non-governmental organisation championing the course of global water availability, over 70 per cent of Nigerians still lacked access to clean and safe water.
The coming on board of the water master plan after so many years of development is a welcome idea as it would chart the course for participation by all stakeholders as well as define expected role.
The plan due for review by 2030 is also expected to provide the guidelines for the much needed private sector participation in the water sector.
The Federal Executive Council approved a 16-year National Water Resources Master Plan to ensure proper management and development of the nation’s water resources.
Minister of Water Resources, Sarah Ochekpe, said that the master plan developed by the ministry in partnership with the Japan International Agency, would be implemented in three phases.
The first phase of the scheme would last between 2014 and 2020, while the second phase would be from 2021 to 2025, and the third phase from 2026 to 2030.
The master plan estimated that the country’s demand for water would increase from its current 5.93 billion cubic metres per year to 16.58 billion cubic metres in 2030.
Ochekpe said the ministry got an approval for the National Water Resources Master Plan 2013 to ensure that the country’s water resources were properly managed.
“We have adequate supply and utilisation of water in the country in acceptable quality and standard and we have national coverage.”
“Through the master plan, it is intended that we will be able to gather and collate appropriate information that will help in terms of hydrological, hydro-metrological and hydro-geologicalinformation management within each hydrological area and basin within the country,” the minister said.
Ochekpe said the plan also contains proposals on how to use water resources to mitigate the effect of climate change to support the development of irrigated agriculture in Nigeria.
She said that the master plan recognised the roles and responsibility of all stakeholders in the water sector and would ensure proper investment in the water resources development in the country.
The minister said that the master plan, which acknowledged the inadequacy of government funding of the water sector development, also proposed the commercialisation of water services to increase the revenue base of the sector for the maintenance of facilities and development of new ones.
The plan also identified the private sector and the Public Private Partnership as additional sources of funding for the sector.
She said that donor agencies would complement the limited budgetary allocations from the federal government.
The public hearing on the water sector bill was one that gathered Nigerians from different groups to contribute to finding the best way the water sector should be operated.
The bill, according to experts would transform the water sector as it would provide the necessary tonic needed for the turnaround of the sector.
Minister of Water Resources, Mrs. Sarah Ochekpe, used the occasion to call for the adoption of a legal framework to protect the country’s water resources.
According to her, a legal framework is an essential component of the country’s water supply and sanitation reform programme that should be adopted for the development of the sector.
She said that the proposed legal framework would ensure equitable, beneficial, efficient and sustainable use and management of surface and underground water resources, among others.
“It will also meet the basic human needs of the present and future generations as well as promote affordable access to water in the country,” she added.
The minister urged participants at the workshop to offer their inputs on the draft Water Resources Bill and to agree on a roadmap for its early passage into law.
Mr. Michel Arion, EU Ambassador to Nigeria, said the development of the bill would address mandates of institutions which had overlapped over the years.
Arion said the absence of legal framework was responsible for the inability of the EU to play major roles in the country’s water sector.
“We have been developing infrastructure, building boreholes and dams and they do not work. The reason being that there are no legal frameworks, no policy and these institutions are not well established so the mandates are overlapping. We don’t have a law guiding water supply in the country. There wouldn’t be any development in the sector in the absence of a law guiding the sector,” Arion said.
The permanent secretary in the ministry of water resources Mr. Baba Faruk said the bill, when passed into law, would transform the water sector.
Faruk said the workshop was organised to enable stakeholders brainstorm and make inputs into the draft bill document.
“By so doing, various actors in the water sector would have added value and taken ownership of the document so as to stimulate growth and sustainable development,” Farouk said.
Federal government also presented water use permits to some successful applicants as part of the overall strategy to develop the sector and allow private sector participation in hydro aspect of electricity generation.
The presentation of the permits, according to the Coordinating Director, Nigeria Integrated Water Resources Management Commission, were prerequisite for those willing to participate in business of electricity generation using hydro.
Ochekpe, who presented the permits to the applicants, said that the permits served as provisional licenses that would enable companies have unhindered access to projects sites in order to finalise their designs.
She noted that the water sector was playing a supportive role in the development of renewable energy using dams and encouraged the private sector to participate in the development of hydropower.
She urged those granted the licenses to ensure that the enormous benefits that Nigerians expected from them were fulfilled.
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