The hope of relief for residents of Bauchi metropolis currently facing acute scarcity of water was dashed after the State Water Board failed in its promise to restore supply last Thursday.
The Water Board had in an announcement over the local radio station promised to restore water supply on March 25 but is yet to fulfill the promise
The city’s water supply was disrupted about two weeks ago following the ongoing expansion and rehabilitation works at the treatment plant at Gubi Dam, the booster station and the reservoirs.
A resident of Bauchi, Jamilu Bashir accused the board of deceiving millions of residents of the metropolis.
“The water board has engaged the services of local radios for over one week consistently airing announcement of restoring the supply of water in the city. Many people believe the messages and relax their minds with the assurance from the board but to our greatest disappointment, the information turned out to be false. We are appealing to the water board to stop the media deception and match their words with action by restoring the supply.”
Another resident, Fatima Sani said that the failure of the board to resume supply of water as promised has exacerbated the situation. “I have asked the vendor supplying to our house not to supply water two days before Thursday with the high expectation of getting the water from the pump but the agency disappointed everyone. Why should they promise to restore the supply if they are not ready to do so? They should not play politics with the lives of people because they use the same radio stations to announce the suspension of the supply of water and they also use the medium to play our minds that they will restore the supply Thursday. I hope they will repeat what they did to the people and restore the supply of water.”
Alhaji Yusuf Umar of Doya area of the metropolis advised the water board to suspend its “media gimmicks’’ and focus on how to resume supply because they are deceiving the people and increasing the suffering of the people.
“Even on Tuesday, one of the radio stations said that the board will restore supply today (yesterday) but up till now no single drop of water was released to the people. We are appealing to the state government to intervene with a view to alleviating the suffering of the people.”
The Gubi Dam General Manager of the Board, Engineer Aminu Aliyu Gital, appealed to the consumers to be patient with the board. “I want to use this opportunity to once again apologise to the good people of Bauchi metropolis that we did not mean that we are going to restore water supply from Thursday.
“If it was taken out of context we are really sorry for the suffering we have subjected them to but this is meant for their own good and is our desire to immediately solve this suffering because we want to have a durable facility in place. We wouldn’t want to jump to what would have an adverse effect on the facilities,” he said.
Gital explained that the board had since commenced the process of flushing and disinfecting the main pipes and the test has already shown the successes of the flushing exercise, adding that the palliative measures to cushion the effects of the scarcity will continue.
Meanwhile, commercial boreholes operators and truck pushers (vendors) have continued to make brisk business as a result of the extreme scarcity of water in the metropolis.
Our correspondent who went round the city, reports that operators of tricycles have now joined the trade with some drivers fetching water from the outskirts to the heart of the city and selling at N700 for 15 kegs.
One of the drivers, Aminu Tanko told North East Trust that he preferred to load between 12-15 kegs, which he buys for N100 and sells for N700. “In a day, besides fueling my tricycle, I make a profit of over N3000, which is far better than ferrying passengers.”
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