Scarcity of water bites harder in Bauchi metropolis

Scarcity of drinking water has plunged millions of residents of Bauchi metropolis into untold hardship as the hot season sets in.

North East Trust gathered that the scarcity was caused by the ongoing expansion and rehabilitation N30 billion 3rd World Bank Urban Water Sector Reform Project Water in the state.

The Bauchi State Water Board has resorted to dispensing water from tankers moving to various areas of the metropolis to alleviate the scarcity and the suffering of the people but findings revealed that the intervention has not resolved the situation.

A resident of Kobi street, Fahad Ismail said the situation had thrown the people into untold hardship.

“Life has become unbearable for us because one of the most important basic necessity water has become gold and getting it has also become a source of concern to residents in Bauchi.

“For the past four weeks we have not got a drop of water and the wells in the area had dried up while water vendors have doubled their price. Even sachet water price has increase in our area. We also heard that it will take another four weeks to get the water back. We are appealing to the state government to come to our rescue,” Ismail said

Another resident who is also widow at the Wunti area of the metropolis, Zainab Shehu, who was sighted in the queue to get water from a tanker told North East Trust that the scarcity was gradually crippling activities in many houses.

“This tanker brought the water once in a week and the vendors fetching water from commercial boreholes have increased the prices of a keg from N20 to N50 each and is hard to get. All the wells had dried up because of the high demand for the water.

“The advent of hot weather in Bauchi recently is making life very difficult to manage and we don’t have alternative. The tankers are not enough and you get two or three buckets if they come your area,” Zainab said

A resident of Magaji quarters, who has a well in his house, Babayo Adamu, said residents often stormed his house as early as 5am. “I and my wife usually wake around 12 midnight to fetch water from my own well for my family use because my neighbours storm the house as early as 5am to get water from the well.

“Even yesterday night I went to the nearby shop to buy table water but I could not get one sachet of the water because the scarcity had affected the companies producing sachet water. Some of the tankers are now being diverted to well-to-do individuals in the town. We are appealing to the government to come to our aid,” Adamu said.

A water vendor selling the water at the metropolis Ibrahim Mohammed told our correspondent that the owners of the commercial boreholes have increased their charges from N50 to N100 for 10 keg.

“We have also increased our price from N200 to N500 because of the long queue and number of trips we make in a day. Before the scarcity we used to make between eight to 10 trips per day but now we only have two to three trips per day.”

North East Trust recalled that last December, during the inspection tour of the water facility, the General Manager of Water Project in Bauchi, Engineer Aminu Gital, said that no fewer than an estimated one million consumers were expected to have an uninterrupted access to safe and clean drinking water in the Bauchi metropolis by March 2021.

Engineer Aminu Gital, who is also the project manager of the ongoing World Bank Urban Water Sector Reform Project, said when completed it would supply 75million cubic liters of filtered and treated water daily to consumers across Bauchi metropolis.

He noted that the project had since reached 93 per cent completion as the remaining job was the installation of electro-mechanical equipment and other necessary gadgets, stressing we had been executing the project according to specifications.

All efforts made to get the reaction of Gital on the current situation proved abortive as he declined to pick several calls put to his mobile line and he did not respond to text message sent to him at press time.