Stakeholders in the water sector on Thursday called for full implementation of the N85 billion earmarked for the Federal Ministry of Water Resources in 2017 budget.
They told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar that doing this would go a long way to make Nigeria to meet it’s target of meeting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, and to improve access to water and sanitation for all.
Ms Tolani Busari, the Head, Governance, WaterAid Nigeria, said the total amount for the sector was great, saying emphasis should be placed on projects that would touch the lives of people, especially in rural areas.
She said “we really commend the Federal Government for the increase, if you look at what we have now and in previous years, you would see that there is improvement.
“It is commendable, but there is a lot more that can be done, we call for more capital projects that will have direct impact on the people.
“We call for projects that will directly benefit the people in terms of water supply, sanitation and hygiene, and not just building infrastructure alone”.
Busari said transforming the lives of Nigerians especially in rural areas would have direct impact on how inclusive development could be for the nation.
She urged state governments to take a cue from what the Federal Government was doing in terms improving their own budgets for water, saying transforming lives happen mostly at the state and local government levels.
She said access to water supply and sanitation was the first step to overcoming poverty, saying there was the need for stakeholders to consciously prioritise for water.
She also called for effective measures to ensure that capital projects were completed, stressing that there should be an end to abandoned projects.
Ms Priscilla Achakpa, the National Coordinator, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) Nigeria, bemoaned the low priority given to the sanitation sector, as the bulk of the money was for Integrated Water Resource Management and River Basins.
The coordinator, who commended the increase in budget to the water sector, however, lamented that the issues of sanitation and hygiene did not get the desired government attention.
Achakpa then stressed the need to scale-up funding to sanitation, hygiene and gender, noting that NGOs also needed to scale up awareness for government to realise the importance of funding the sector. (NAN)