We hope to achieve 100% access to potable water by 2030 – Water Resources Minister

Latest statistics show that 31 and 71 percent of Nigerians still do not have access to potable water and sanitation respectively, making them some of the very key challenges for the country today. Recently, the Ministry of water resources unveiled a water policy to drive access, improve irrigation and sanitation. In this interview with John Osadolor, Bashir Hassan, Onyinye Nwachukwu & Kenneth Hassan, the minister, Suleiman Adamu speaks on new government policy direction for the sector.

Take us through developments in your ministry for the period you have been in office

It is exactly a year ago that I came in as minister of water resources and I met a ministry that is supposed to be a professional ministry but which was totally derailed in my view. I met a lot of good people that were demoralized with the things that were going wrong, a ministry that was not operating its mandate the way it should. So, the first thing I thought of was to organize a retreat even as I was getting briefings from the various departments and agencies.

Organisation of the ministry

The ministry in addition to its departments has about 16 other agencies. We have the 12 river basins, Nigeria Hydrological Service Agency, Integrated Water Resources Management Commission, and the Nation Water Resources Institute. Of course, there is a Gurara Water Management Agency which is not really captured by law but still operating. We went through series of briefings but I realized that there was no better option than to bring everybody together under one roof so that we could discuss the issues of the ministry and chart a way forward.

Restoring original mandate of the ministry

In December, last year, we had a retreat from which a couple of issues came up of the things we needed to do; how to restore the ministry back to its original mandate and how to do things efficiently. We thought of the need to revitalize the river basins. We also saw the need to find other areas of funding our projects and how to complete ongoing projects. This is where I came back to the hand-over notes and I discovered that there were 117 ongoing projects within the ministry.

I cannot talk about the other agencies; there are about 100 if you include the river basins and other agencies. These projects until we commissioned the Otuoke water supply project last September, none of them has been finished completely and commissioned. Most of them were either abandoned or comatose; no funding and successive administrations would come and without making any effort to complete the existing projects they met, they just create new projects and move on.

N88.9 billion in liabilities

That was a serious issue to the extent that those projects left had a liability hanging on them of N88.9 billion when I came in and with a projection of about N250 billion or so if I were to complete all of them. The N88.9 billion was just a liability. Those were some of the things I found. I found a situation where projects were being awarded just with simple preliminary designs, no proper site investigations and planning. So, I decided that no new project would be awarded without proper planning.

Hurried contracts

All these were put aside. You do not do this kind of thing with such important structures like dams and water supply projects. These are projects that have a life span of 50 to 60 years and you design them in two or three weeks, it is never done! Therefore, contracts were awarded without proper estimates, so, you find out that after a year or two, the contractor will come back to complain that he has had to do this extra thing which is more than what was put in the bill of quantities because the contractor was in a hurry to go to site. A good contractor ought to go to the site first, check the drawings, and make all his assessments before bidding. But it was like a rat race, everybody was in a hurry to cash in and therefore, we are left with this debt burden and the responsibility to complete these projects.

World Bank lends a helping hand

So, our option was to commission individual experts, professional engineers with the help of World Bank to all those 117 projects to do what we call a technical rapid audit and they came back to tell us the actual status of the projects. Based on that, we had to prioritise. We are now using that as a basis with the funds that are coming in under the 2016 budget to determine where we allocate the money in order to complete the hanging projects; that was how we completed the Otuoke water project. We have now charted a programme of completion and penned down projects to be completed in 2016, 2017 and some in 2018.

That is how we have structured our budget. At least up to the year 2018, we do not intend to start any new project until we are able to complete a substantial portion of these projects that we think are viable and can be of immense benefit to the people.

Of course, there are some projects within these 117 that we looked at and said were not viable. So we identified the useful ones, particularly dams and irrigation and of course water supply projects, to continue with such.

We will try to finish as much as we can, then probably 2018, we now begin to roll out new sets of projects.

National water resources master plan

The other problem was that there is a National Water Resources master plan, but a lot of the ongoing projects have nothing to do with the master plan. How can you have a master plan without following it? It does not make sense. So, everything we are doing now in this ministry is centred around two objectives; first everything must be in conformity with the water resources master plan, which was designed first from 1995 to 2015 and revised in 2013 to take effect from 2016.

So, the 1995 to 2015 master plan was distorted largely. There was no ownership, the ministry doesn’t even remember that there was a master plan existing but now we have the 2016 to 2030 master plan and everything we are going to do will be within this master plan. Then as far as water supply and sanitation are concerned, we would work under the framework of Sustainable Development Goals. We hope to eradicate open defecation by 2025 and we are hoping to achieve a 100 percent access to potable water supply and improved sanitation by the year 2030 to all Nigerians.

Could you state the viable and non-viable projects?

We have a good number of them, which we will continue but I cannot tell you specifically which ones will be discontinued. Out of the retreat we had, we came out with a roadmap that worked on all that including the revitalisation of the river basins. The roadmap was approved by the President in June; we made a presentation in May and got approval in June. Everything now, even the roadmap itself is in accordance with the master plan, in accordance with SDGs but there is a lot of other strategies we are coming out with such as the issue of funding. we have realised that the best way is to go aggressive with public private partnership and we have developed a lot of information for potential investors particularly hydro power and irrigation systems and we have received a lot of interests in that regard. We are currently working assiduously with Infrastructure Regulatory and Concession Commission (ICRC). We are also working with Bureau of Public Enterprise, we have signed an MoU with the Sovereign Wealth Investment Authority, we are in talks with NIRSAL so that we can begin to see large scale commercial farmers coming to invest in agriculture in our river basins as part of our efforts to revitalise the river basins as well. There are a lot of activities going on in the various sectors and I am quite hopeful that we will be able to achieve something.

Where do you see the ministry being if this master plan is adequately implemented?

I can tell you the ministry will be different. It will be what it should be in terms of providing all the things that should be provided under its mandate, harnessing our water resources, doing flood control projects, developing our hydro systems, increasing our agricultural potential. We have a potential of 3.14 million hectares but so far, we have only developed 130,000 hectares, half of which is not even being utilised. So the master plan has identified those areas, there is this hectare for irrigation. If we put 3.14 million hectares of land for irrigation between now and 2030, imagine the impact it will make on agricultural production, crops, vegetables, rice, if our river basins are working perfectly.

This master plan has identified our hydro potential, agric potential; it has identified problems relating to flood and how we can get them. It has identified also drought prone areas and what we can do to support those areas. If we can implement that master plan, the whole landscape will change as far as Nigeria’s water resources are concerned.

What specific areas are investors interested in and how much are they willing to bring in?

Well, we cannot start putting figures into anything because it all depends on how much land we have available and how much land they want and what level of infrastructure they need to put, but I can assure you that they are asking for five hectares of land to as much as 10,000 hectares and when you are talking of 10,000 hectares you are talking of big money. The only thing now is how many portion of land is available.

Out of the developed infrastructure where we have the dams and irrigation facilities, it is extremely difficult to get 10,000 hectares unless you want to uproot the local community, the local farmers that are already operating there for years, which you cannot. What we are saying is that there is a huge potential for expansion of the existing schemes that they can explore. If you go to Kwara State for instance, there is a dam with a potential to expand to about 4,000 hectares. So, if an investor is interested, he can come and extend the canals and so on and we enter into some kind of agreement under certain condition for him to expand and use it for a period of time that we will agree on and recoup his investment.

Incentives are now in place

That is one aspect, and then there are areas, which you don’t even need to do a dam. If you go to river Niger and Benue, you don’t need to put a dam there, all you need do is clear the land and put in some pumping system, sprinklers and you are in business. But, we have lacked capital for us to put the huge infrastructure that makes it easy for people to come and invest. With this new policy that we are bringing, giving a lot of information out, we are getting a lot of interests. One good thing we have now is NIRSAL, this agency of the CBN that is willing to guarantee up to 70 percent of foreign investors who are coming to invest in Nigeria, it is a fantastic idea. Incentives are now in place, incentives from CBN, and we will provide incentives within our river basins and within our river valleys as well.

Can you make some projections about how much will come in from the investors?

I am not a financial expert, but I can tell you that based on our MoU with the Nigerian Sovereign Wealth Investment Authority, they have like $200 million in their kitty now to invest in agriculture. I am not saying they are going to invest it all here but this is what they told me.

Stimulating states and local governments to provide water supply

We sat down and brainstormed on how to move forward. A lot of projects are ongoing, our development partners are doing boreholes, doing sanitation programmes but you do not see the effects because of our huge population and we are saying that 2050, we are going to be probably the fourth largest nation in the world and what are we doing about it? So, we said let us have a programme with common targets, common goals and push it and let’s find a way to stimulate the states and the local governments so that they can do more but in everything that you want to do, there must be a leadership. That is why as a ministry we are providing that leadership; we discussed with all the development programmes to find problems that we can all key in to solve. That is not to say the existing problems will be thrown away, they will all be fused in so that we are all going with the same goal.

Bringing in the private sector

Now, everybody’s focus will be 100 percent coverage by 2030 and we said look, with federal government, states, local governments and the development partners alone, all our resources put together will not achieve it, so we need to bring in the private sector. We are engaging them soon. We are tapping into corporate responsibility funds, philanthropic organisations, NGOs; we want to flood the country with the message that ‘water is life’. Let everybody concentrate on water; where ever you are, whatever little money you have, you can make a contribution, at least put it in water supply and sanitation. We will mobilise the country, I am even going to meet with Nollywood to help us in this, water and sanitation should be key. We are going to go into serious advocacy for that and that is the way to go.

How are you collaborating with state governments to improve the water supply situation?

Number one, the master plan addresses the overall water resources aspect. Issues that have to do with water supply generally is the responsibility of states. In Kano for instance, it will be the responsibility of the state government. There is no water agency that is being run by the federal ministry of water resources; it is state governments that do it. We have shared our master plan with them, the Federal Executive Council just approved the draft national water bill which is going to the National Assembly and when we have a law that will provide the guide. There has never been a consolidated water resources law in this country, for the first time now, we are pushing for it, and we just got it approved by the FEC. That law provides for better interaction as far as issues of water are concerned for states and local governments.

We have in it what is called catchment management committees where the states and the federal government will come together to look at the needs and requirements for the catchment and how to manage the water resources within the catchment area. Now, the issue of not having water in city centres like I said is the responsibility of states but I know some of the constraints. I have worked in a water agency before and I know first and foremost that because of the exchange rate, it is very difficult to invest especially in urban water scheme because 60 to 70 percent of the total equipment needed is imported.

What then are you doing in collaboration with states to make people more responsible in terms of paying for water?

It is about education and improved service. I think the water providers ought to first improve the service. They must be ready to first bite the bullet and spend more money to improve their service.

I know a lot of people will pay when they see improvement. People also want to get value for their money. You know it is a two- way thing. If they are not getting, it is a problem.

Also, the Nigerian people must begin to understand that water is an economic commodity which must be paid for just as they pay for phone credit, the way they pay for Coke.

What does the roadmap say on how we can get there and what are you doing with the ministry of power to ensure that this is achieved?

We have an excellent collaborative relationship with the ministry of power. Infact, we have instituted a meeting for every second Tuesday of the month between the two ministries but sometimes our travel plans make this difficult. Like you said, the roadmap has identified that Nigeria has a potential of 14,400 megawatts of hydro power out of which Kainji, Jebba have about 3,000 megawatts. Hopefully from next year, Mambila will come on stream or the implementation will start which will add another 3,000mw but as I am talking to you now, we have existing trapped power from our dams that can produce over 200 mw varying from one megawatt to 40 megawatts just sitting idle.

There is no evacuation plan, but we are talking with the ministry of power. Very soon, we are going to advertise for concessioning of six dams. We feel that we should concession them to the private sector. We are identifying more, like I said for the brown fields; we have potential of about 200. We have some new schemes coming on board, we have 30 mw coming in Gurara, and we have 40 mw coming up in Kashimbila from Taraba state. Besides that, we have identified many green fields site that have potential for hydro power.

Investment potential of Hydropower

My ministry has developed a document with the title, ‘Investment Potential for Hydro power’ which we have been circulating in various investment shows. There is a lot of interests in the US and UK. Some people are interested in the brown fields, while others are in the green fields. So, we are looking for investors, which a lot of people have shown interests in.

A million hectares of irrigated land by 2030

I will like to see by 2030 that we have more than a million hectares that is under formal irrigation and that we do not import food any longer. I will also like to see that our river basins are the major catalysts for this. I will like to see a situation where the 14,000 mw of electricity is exploited and put to use.

These are the kind of things we want to see. I want to see that before 2030, every community in this country has access to water and 100 percent coverage of sanitation.