N63bn needed to revive River Basins as agencies remain comatose on policy inconsistency

Redundancy of the 12 River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs), on account of maladministration, has brought them to a comatose level where an astounding N63.55 billion is required for their revival, according to an action plan seen by BusinessDay.

The RBDAs were established to provide water for irrigation and domestic use, improvement of navigation, hydroelectric power generation, recreation facilities and fisheries projects.

The basins were also expected to engender big plantation farming and encourage the establishment of industrial complexes that could bring the private and public sectors in joint business partnership.

But as a result of policy inconsistencies and reversals over the past 40 years, the RBDAs located in different states across the Nigeria have not performed up to their full economic potential in transforming the nation’s rural agricultural economy, as envisioned in the blueprint for their establishment in 1976.

The RBDAs have over the years built a total of 148 dams nationwide with a combined capacity of 9.8bcm for various beneficial uses.

However, only 15 percent of the 3.1 million hectares of irrigable land is equipped with facilities for all-year round farming, as Nigeria regrettably spends $2 billion annually on food importation.

According to an action plan designed by the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to strengthen the RBDAs, the sum is required to among other things – re-equip the RBDAs with basic plant and machinery; develop agricultural service centres/farm settlement schemes; enhance access roads to existing RBDA project sites as well as conduct infrastructure inventory to assess the status of all RBDA projects.

The river basins authorities were also expected to bridge the gap between the rural and urban centres by taking development to the grass roots and discourage migration from the rural areas to the urban centres. These objectives were to be achieved through surface impoundment of water by constructing small, medium and large dams, which would enable an all-year round farming activities in the country.

There has been argument that one of the reasons the RBDAs have not been commercially viable is because there was little evidence of meaningful feasibility studies carried out prior to their construction.

Analysts, who advance this argument, believe that the RBDAs represent a huge waste of capital.

Suleiman Adamu, minister of water resources, admits that the RBDAs have witnessed various changes in mission as well as organisational structure, and manpower settings without necessary legal instruments, and the ministry has constituted and inaugurated a committee that has already drafted a blue print on repositioning the RBDAs.

“Like many Nigeria enterprise, the RBDAs failed to realise the high expectations of the government and the people of Nigeria, of becoming vital instruments for the attainment of self-sufficiency in production and equitable allocation of water resources across Nigeria,” he stated.

Stressing the need to reform the RBDAs and water sector as a whole to develop the agricultural sector towards the provision of food security as well as diversification and development of the rural economy, the minister said commercialisation of the RBDAs was the way to go.

“The need for commercialisation of the RBDAs is overdue as this would enhance the operational autonomy of the RBDAs by removing bureaucratic bottlenecks and political interference. Also, it would check the absolute dependence of them on the Federal Government for funding as well as evolve a more result-oriented and accountable management based on performance agreements and the provision of competitive compensation schemes for employees,” Adamu said.

However, Margaret Umoh, director of information and public relations in the water resources ministry, told BusinessDay that partnerships and other alternative sources would be explored to fund the projects, as the ministry’s outstanding liabilities presently stood at N88.87 billion.

She said enhanced collaboration with development partners on areas of assistance and partnerships for rural water and sanitation programmes would be pursued with states, local government authorities, communities and the private sector in order to bring to fruition the goal of making potable water available and accessible to Nigerians.

“In order to make this happen, the government intends to effectively utilise capital from the natural resources fund, ecological fund, public private partnerships, including development grants, loans, and bonds,” Umoh said.