Over 400 abandoned water projects uncover, Senate

Over 400 abandoned water projects  has been uncovered by the Nigerian Senate Committee on Water Resources, this is abandoned projects is said to be responsible for acute water scarcity across the country.

Senator Bello Mandiya, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Water Resources, made this known while briefing newsmen after the budget defence by the Minister of Water Resources, Engineer Suleiman Adamu, said some of the dams were cited where dams cannot even be constructed.

Senator Mandiya explained that what the Ministry has done so far is to prioritize dams and that so far, twenty dams have been identified which will be completed in due course.

“The minister met about 400 water projects scattered all over the country. What he did was to prioritize because some dams were even cited where dams cannot be constructed .

“What he did was to prioritize and he has been able to complete some and decided to do others, about 20 of them from now till the end of his tenure. So, the ministry is very clear about this .

“If we compare and contrast between what this government has done with previous governments in the water sector, you will realise that this government has done very well.”

The minister while appearing before the committee had lamented the spate of abandoned dams across the country.

According to him, “We have over 400 dams but many of them have no utilization downstream. Any body can come and invest in the dams”_.

Speaking on the budget proposal for 2022, the minister presented budget proposal of N81 billion for the main ministry while another budget proposal of N70.4 billion was presented for the agencies under the ministry.

The capital proposal under the main ministry is about N78 billion while the personnel cost is about N2 billion and overheads of N278 million.

The agencies under the ministry proposed capital budget of N62.1 billion while personnel is pegged at N7.2 billion and earmarked N1 billion for overhead.

The minister in his presentation told the committee of their decision to create line item for Public Private Partnership, PPP in line with extant circular.

He said the ministry is focusing on mobilizing private investment for infrastructures development.

Bello Mandiya is a Nigerian politician, who was the elected Senator for the Katsina South Senatorial district in February 2019 Nigerian general elections on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC). He was the former chief of staff to the Katsina State governor Aminu Bello Masari.