FCT Minister of State Dr Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu has commissioned a water treatment plant in Abaji to help sanitation and hygiene in the rural communities.
The minister also stated that the project would assist in improving the health and economic conditions of the benefiting communities, and take the FCT a step closer to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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Dr Ramatu also revealed that the administration has initiated actions to achieve the targets of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and the Open Defecation Free (ODF) status across the FCT in line with the Executive Order Number 9.
“We are indeed committed to meeting the ODF target before the nationally set date of 2025 and universal access to water and sanitation by the SDG target of 2030.
“Already, we have developed an SDG action plan for the FCT and have aligned the 17 SDGs with our ministerial deliverables and applicable Presidential Directives and Executive Orders. Our 2021 budget priorities have been dictated by the need to meet these objectives,” she stressed.
The minister, however, assured other communities that are yet to benefit that the administration was working to ensure that water is provided for them to improve their wellbeing.
She said the project has the capacity to serve more than one million people and expressed hope that it would help the communities to adequately meet their water and sanitation needs.
She, therefore, charged the beneficiary communities to demonstrate genuine appreciation for the project by protecting the facilities from vandalisation, while tasking them to ensure that the taps and water kiosks are turned off whenever not in use to avoid wastage.
The minister affirmed that to ensure sustainability and uninterrupted water supply to the communities, the project facilities need to be serviced and maintained regularly.
She said considering the economic realities and subsisting competing needs, the FCT Administration would continue to leverage on partnerships such as that with the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President (OSSAP) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which delivered the project, to deepen and extend service delivery.
Earlier, the FCT Permanent Secretary, Mr Olusade Adesola, noted that the administration has been grappling with the challenge of expanding infrastructure to the teeming population of Abuja, stressing that the inauguration of the treatment plant was to mitigate one of the challenges posed by inadequate infrastructure.
Recall that the project comprises the construction of raw water intake structure, flocculation of the bad sedimentation tank, a filter unit, a clean water tank, high lift pump station, chemical building and dosing system, a service reservoir and transmission and distribution network pipelines.
