Inquiry reveals that Makurdi’s water woes are far from over, AMETO AKPE, supported by a grant from the Pulitzer center on crisis reporting writes that poor planning and governance continues to enable the crisis.
The inhabitants of Makurdi, capital town of Benue State located in north-central Nigeria, have waited for almost three decades for access to safe drinking water. Teased by the unfulfilled promises of one administration after the other, they have watched billions in naira squandered on projects that either never see the light of day or being flawed and poorly planned bring no real relief or at best only short-lived respite. Though this scenario is replicated all over the country, Makurdi is peculiar, as the town sits on the banks of one of Nigeria’s largest rivers, the Benue, from which the state derives its name.
Thus in Makurdi, a popular saying plays out, ‘for many live by the riverside but wash their hands with spittle!’ Dwellers face a dreary quality of life with serious threats to health and general wellbeing, brought about and heightened by water scarcity and the inability to access safe drinking water. Most households, a greater proportion of which are poor, rely on yard wells, water vendors and streams – whose offerings are usually a cocktail of disease carrying bacteria from which many have died. A visit to Wadata, a slum neighborhood on the waterfront, gives a glimpse into the daily struggle of many.
Residents, bereft of alternatives, wash, bath and drink from the polluted river Benue; same place where some defecate and dump garbage. Samuel Ekem a grain trader and resident of Wadata said, “I came to Makurdi as of 1983, then there use to be taps within this area but then later those things went bad and they were not repaired or replaced. Because the taps were not running, boys started vandalizing the pipes. Some of the owners of houses stated removing these things. If you go around now you will not see any of them.” Several residents testify that pipe-borne water has never run in their district, and even in relatively well off neighborhoods water runs once a week for about an hour.
With a population disputed to hover between 400,000 and 600,000 people, estimates by authorities place the current water needs of the populace at 47,000 cubic meters per day. Like on the larger irony that is Nigeria, arguments vary why the inhabitants of a land so rich in water resource suffer from its scarcity. While civil society fingers inefficient utilization of funds, poor governance and misplaced priorities for the water woes, voices on government’s side say the failing is caused by lack of funds, poor power supply and a population trapped by a mindset that insists ‘water is free’. Notably the three tiers of government maintain a monopoly on the provision of water and sanitation services in Nigeria.
However delivering on this responsibility has not been very successful through the years with the public sector managing to satisfy only a limited percentage of the population. The Benue state water board, an organ responsible for maintaining all water resource facilities in the state and providing equitable distribution of acceptable and affordable portable water, suffers difficulties in management and operation. Its water supply system built in the early seventies shows extensive deterioration and poor utilization of existing capacities due to under-maintenance and limited operational funds. Pipe-borne water in Makurdi is largely absent and where available, supply is unreliable and of poor quality.
The bulk of the pipe network is old and rusty as leaks sprout all over town when water is pumped from the old water treatment plant. Meanwhile, the board blames consumer refusal to pay the stipulated flat monthly rate of N2, 000, for the lack of funds needed to properly run operations. John Ngbede Benue state commissioner for water resources insists that citizens, misled by politicians who use the promise of free water provision as a propaganda tool to canvass for votes, were overly dependent on the government to do all things for them for free. “The problem is a lot of them cannot even connect pipes to their various houses.
There is none of our main pipelines that we have in town that if you break you won’t see water. This water has to be connected to your house it will not be the responsibility of the water board to connect this water free of charge to your house you have to pay for it. And if you pay for such services definitely this water will reach your house,” he said. It is however important to disclose that investigation reveals in Benue state there is no clear structure for water billing or collection neither is there one that properly monitors or tracks revenue generated or fund injections.
Adebayo Mark – Adeyemi former Ogun state water corporation engineer argues that while it is necessary that cost recovery on supply is made through the reasonable, practical and timely payment of tariffs on any service, the managers of the sector must first enhance service coverage; enabling consumers, including the urban poor, access water while ensuring a workable structure of payment which is efficient and consistent to acceptable regional benchmarks. He explains, “I’ve always said people should pay for water and I know that an average Nigerian can pay and will pay if he gets the services and if you make it convenient for him to pay and difficult (perhaps with penalties) for him to default.
The agencies need to do a lot of internal reengineering to make sure the customer gets supply. If there is 95 percent collection efficiency the per capita incidence of tariff will reduce. If we can achieve efficiency because we are bringing in technology amongst others and you can get 95 percent of consumers to pay, definitely in recovering cost, the tariff comes down. That’s why efficiency is important at the service delivery end,” he said. Furthering this argument Samuel Zaka, a homeowner in the new GRA area of Makurdi said, “We are not owing NEPA (power) bills. We want public utilities.
If I have good water, there are lesser diseases, why will I not pay? Do I prefer paying hospital bills? No! So if government gives us water and there are proper bills we will pay. If these facilities are there we will gladly pay.” Notably, in 2008, the state government spent over N300million to rehabilitate the old Makurdi water treatment facility towards attaining its maximum capacity of 18,000 cubic meters of water however the benefit of this ‘rehabilitation’ remains largely unfelt as only those inhabitants in and around the state government house enjoy water supply on a relatively regular basis. This fact gives credence to civil society’s argument that the problem is more about inefficient utilization of funds than sufficiency of funds.
White elephant project?
From the military regime in the eighties, attempts have been made to deal with the problems of water supply in Makurdi but none ever really succeeded. In 2001, the recent past Benue state Governor, George Akume contracted a British firm called Biwater, to build a N3 billion water treatment facility. The project called the Greater Makurdi Water Works was billed to have a daily capacity of 45,000 cubic meters. However 7 years and over N800 million later, no work was carried out and currently nothing is being done to investigate what exactly happened to the resources doled out for the project. More so no one in government seems able to give a clear answer on why the process failed as a whole. It is thus to the credit of the current administration, which came into power in 2007, that the vision to build a modern water treatment plant to service the needs of the residents of Makurdi is seemingly coming to fruition.
In 2008 the contract for the greater Makurdi water works was re-awarded to an Israeli firm, Gilmore Nigeria Limited for N5 billion but with an augmented daily capacity of 100,000 cubic meters. Currently work on the plant, an impressive facility by many standards is estimated at 95 percent complete. Nevertheless, reality cautions the people from rejoicing so soon, as an assessment shows that respite is not exactly near. Indeed enthusiasm amongst the populace has waned, for the project which was to be built within 18 months has now taken 40 months. Meanwhile both government and contractors have been telling the public for the past 10 months that the project is 95 percent complete even as planned commissioning has been pushed forward at least half a dozen times.
Taking a tour of the facility, the reporter observes evidence of structural instability with at least a dozen cracks being plugged in the water chambers. Furthermore, contracts to establish a pipe network or reticulation was not included in the initial project to build the water plant; to which the Benue commissioner for water resources John Ngbede frankly admits was “a lapse in judgment” while informing that the government had no reliable or specific time frame as regards when the pipe network would be installed.
Ngbede notes that it was all dependent on when the contracts are awarded which currently could be in the next 6 to 12 months. Government sources however reveal that the feasibility of these contracts being awarded in the next 18 months ranged from slim to very improbable. “It was a kind of an oversight on our own part. We could have factored the whole thing into the initial contract but if we had done that, the figures (cost) would have also gone very high. The message is for them (the people) to be patient; we are trying to make sure we do everything.” Ngbede said. While applauding the water facility following a tour, Nat Apir, an engineer and chairman of the Nigeria Rally Movement, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), noted that the project planning was flawed. More so as only about 35 percent of the town is reported to be reticulated. He stated, “Building a plant that is designed to supply water to the whole of Makurdi and its environs without reticulation in place, now that is faulty planning.
It’s like putting the cart before the horse. The situation is very, very appalling and I make bold to say that it’s going to remain with us for a very long time because even if the new water treatment plant comes on, water will still not get to the consumer. The last time I checked Gilmor was asking for N9 billion to carry out reticulation in Makurdi and that’s massive.” Terfa, a resident, puts it aptly when he compares the situation to the savor of a freshly cooked meal. “We can perceive the aroma of the food but we know we will not be served. Every administration comes with promises yet they all leave us thirstier than the last.
We can only hope this time will be different,” he said. Another resident Samuel Zaka foresees the possible demise of the whole project stating that considering the tenure of the current governor runs out in three and a half years a new governor may not consider the water project a priority which means the process may be abandoned altogether. “So we have resigned to fate. Government will have to think properly about this issue of solving water problems and if we are still having these types of problems in Makurdi which is the town, I sympathize with the rural communities,” Zaka adds wistfully.
The commissioner so-far informs that the plan is to utilize the existing, though rotted pipe network. While discretion suggests this facility would not sustain the pressure of 50,000 cubic meters of water the official notes that they would first want to see what ever pipe bursting that may occur before introducing an intervention. “What I can assure you is that the present network we have on ground, we are going to use that meanwhile to be sending water out to the people of Makurdi and after that we are also looking for ways to get private sector to come and help to make sure that we award that contract for reticulation.
We are expecting that by the time we start pumping the water out, pipe bursting, we want to see that before we know what to do. We never taught of that earlier because we believe that the present (pipe) network we have can also accommodate the 50,000 cubic meters we are building now. It is not going to be a catastrophe,” Ngede stated. However a catastrophe is what stakeholders insist is going to occur. Apir explains, “The pipes that were laid in the sixties and in the seventies are already weak at the moment.
The old water treatment plant generates about 6000 cubic meters a day, when this is supplied to households you see leakages all over the town, on the streets, anytime water is pumped. Now you come in with a 50,000 cubic meter water supply system high powered pumps, we are going to be flooding this town. So we need to go back to the drawing board and address the issue of reticulation or else the water treatment plant is going to be like another ‘white elephant project’.”
Furthermore a chat with an engineer for one of the bidders for the reticulation contracts reveal that the eventual project for pipe laying would definitely impact on the infrastructure of the town as initial surveys show several houses and roads would have to be tampered with. More cynical observers have noted that the failure to include contracts for reticulation in the project from the start is a deliberate tactic to create more avenues to demand and siphon money. Factoring in the fact that contracts would not be given in the next year or more and based on suggested time-frame, reticulation cannot be completed within the tenure of the current state government. Based on track record a new administration would most likely mean that the project would stop or at least be delayed for an untold period of time causing losses on so many levels.
Moving forward
Though there is clearly a crisis of governance, a failure in how the state has managed its water affairs so far, institutional dysfunction, and low accountability, the challenge is not insurmountable. With increased global stakeholder interest in public water management, a number of success stories have emerged from which lessons can be drawn particularly as Nigeria strives to attain the Millennium Development Goals as regards improving access to safe drinking water and better sanitation services.
Mary Kimani, vice-chair Nairobi City Water & Sewerage Company speaking at the 2011 World Water Week conference informed of challenges from which parallels could be drawn, explaining how the public utility has launched an ambitious plan in response to a new constitution under way in Kenya which requires water authorities to supply water to all citizens regardless of their ability to pay. The company thus works with residents in informal locales to lay water pipes, connecting individual homes and public water-points.
While the agency is responsible for growing the system, citizens contribute by providing labour and are then trained to sustain the scheme. Meanwhile, Professor Emeritus at CEPT University, Ahmedabad-India, Dinesh Mehta, presenting as a case study the Indian community of Meadi Nagar, where 90 percent of urban poor homes have water connection and house toilets, suggested the pipe connection of every house to the water system rather than building shared public water facilities and toilets which are actually more expensive for authorities to sustain.
All that’s needed is political will to ‘do things the right way’. Nigeria must intelligently pursue the UN’s human right to water decree which asserts the duty of governments to ensure safe water and adequate sanitation to all citizens and as experts suggest follow a fresh focus on how to make public water utilities work better through social investments, appropriate tariffs and supply strategies, amongst others.
