Restructuring Water Sector for Greater Efficiency

SATURDAY PERSPECTIVE 

By Stanley Nkwazema

With an estimated population of about 198 million people and a land area of 923.768 kilometres, Nigeria has water resources potential of 370 billion cubic metres, which means that is not a water poor country. However, it is a fact that previous administrations have made it a point to distribute investments in the sector inequitably. This and other challenges in the sector make Nigeria potentially water-stressed.

These sectorial successes and challenges were brought to the fore when the Nigerian Academy of Engineering which provides a platform for harnessing technological resources and making inputs to national developmental process at the highest level of governance invited one of their members and current Minister of Water Resources,  Suleiman Adamu, to throw more light on current developments in Nigeria’s water sector.

Even as Adamu painted a brighter future, the revelations and challenges occasioned by neglect and U– turn from the original mandate of the agencies in the water sector was mind boggling.

The minister, who assumed office in 2015, threw light on the status of the sector and current developments in the last two and half years, itemising the teething problems that have now challenged the Ministry to revitalise this very important sector that can spur the much touted agricultural revolution.

Strikingly, there were 11 very important challenges he raised, including inadequate policy issues, poor funding/low budgetary provisions, absence of effective legal framework, institutional and human capacity weaknesses and lack of political will/delays in budgetary appropriation by the legislature. Others are arbitrary budgetary allocations by the legislature, poor investment by state governments, lack of enabling environment for private sector participation, poor revenue generation and inadequate cost recovery for services, inadequate power supply, and lack of ownership of water facilities by beneficiary communities and poor operations and maintenance culture.

It could be of interest to note from Adamu’s expose that as at 2015, the “only potent policy document for the water sector is the National Water Resources Master Plan developed with a grant from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The document reviewed and made recommendations on how best to harness the water resources of Nigeria with respect to institutional development, water supply and food security.

Unfortunately, the very important aspect of developing the water resources had not been aligned with the plan while most of the projects embarked therein were not properly panned or not adequately funded, leading to several abandoned projects littering the country.

Documents from the Ministry reveal that within the same period, there were 116 large projects including irrigation 37, Dams 38, Water supply 41 , many of which were abandoned or in comatose state due to the fact that they require review of cost or lacked consistent funding for completion. From the document review, most of the projects had attained 40 – 60 per cent  completion with outstanding liabilities totaling N88, 848,112,579.77 and requiring additional contractual commitment to completion to the tune of N264, 990,081,982.53.

One robust policy the Fellow of Nigerian Society of Engineers believes can further stimulate positive developments in the sector is a document that will guide the activities of the sector: “The National Water Resources Bill and National Water Resources Policy were in limbo, there was no irrigation and drainage policy. The National Water Supply and Sanitation Policy adopted in 2000 needed critical review. Strikingly, the National Water Resources Bill had been under preparation since 2006 but has not seen the light of the day.”

In what he described as institutional lapses and inadequacies, Adamu faulted the deployment of human resources, technical capacity, planning, design and contract administrations of projects, data generation and management in the water sector. “Important departments such as planning, research and statistics, River Basin Development operations and inspectorates were headed by non-technical personnel and could not therefore adequately deal with challenges at hand”

It has therefore become necessary that concerted efforts must be put in place to alleviate the problem in the water sector and improve the trend towards achieving 100% access to water supply by 2030 if viewed in line with the newly adopted United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the estimation that the Nigerian population could grow to 257 million by that time.

Another worrisome issue is the fact that pipe-borne water supply in the urban areas has continued on the downward trend from 30 per cent national coverage in 1990 to about  seven per cent in 2015. Adamu said after the unpleasant revelation, it became necessary that an aggressive effort to address the situation is embarked by ensuring that all tiers of government partner to ensure radical changes and improvement in the sector. It is also understood that sanitation had declined from 30 per cent in 2010 to 28 per cent in 2015. Adamu explains that “open defecation has been on the increase and there was not a single LGA in Nigeria that is free due to lack of adequate political support and poor coordination of efforts between all stakeholders in the different tiers of government” 

It is also interesting to note that the challenges of sanitation are not only limited to rural areas; it is equally a huge problem in urban settings, especially in public places and urban slums.

On irrigation, Nigeria has the potential of about 3.14 million hectares of land suitable for irrigation out of which about 440,853 hectares has been planned. Out of this, only 128,097 hectares of the planned area had been developed and about 50,000 hectares of the developed area lost to failed infrastructure and poor operations and maintenance.

According to Adamu, “the current annual water demand for irrigation in wet and dry seasons including FADAMA lands is about 1.926BCM. This translates to about 0.7 per cent of our internally generated potential.”

The Minister added: “There are over 250 large and medium dams across the country with a storage capacity of about 30BCM/year. The storage capacity of these dams put together is more than the future demand estimated to the year 2030. Water demand analysis has shown that there is enough storage capacity in each of the eight Hydrological Areas even without taking into consideration the large hydropower dams. Almost all the dams in the country are not utilised optimally.

“Their management and operation is poor and they lack basic instrumentation gadgets. In addition, poor watershed management, growing siltation of rivers and climate change are becoming a serious challenge to the storage capacities and operational efficiency of these dams and reservoirs.”

Nigeria currently boasts of 12 River Basin Development Authorities at different locations. Modelled after the United States Tenesee Valley Basin Development concept following the drought of the 1970s, they have the primary function of serving as operators, managers and developers of water resources infrastructures within their catchment areas, and work as integrated rural development drivers in the areas of food production and employment generation.

But the performance of the RBDAs over the years cannot be described as desirable, not due to technical failings, but largely on account of policy and institutional inadequacies. Adamu also observed that the “unfortunate decision of the then Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation (TCPC) to strip them of their” non-water” assets in the late 80s and making them solely managers of irrigation infrastructures”  further deteriorated the state of the authorities. 

For the River Basin Authorities to survive and regain their lost glory and perform optimally to deliver the mandate of their establishment, Adamu said: “They require complete restructuring to operate as technical and professional agencies with clear objectives. Therefore, there are compelling needs for institutional, organisational and policy reforms that would propel the authorities to serve as effective vehicles for integrated rural development as originally envisioned.”

In a bid to tackle the myriad of problems slowing the pace of development in the sector, Adamu has adopted “immediate and long term strategies for the water sector (2016 – 2030) easily referred to as the Water Sector Road Map. The current developments being witnessed in the Ministry are being guided by the document featuring eight very important points: Conclusion of the draft National Water Resources Policy, National Irrigation and Drainage Policy and Water Resources Bill; organisation and manpower review of the Ministry towards repositioning for enhanced service delivery; prioritising and executing the ministry’s project and programmes; developing and implementing a national irrigation development programme.

Others are the identification of dams with hydro power potentials for development; developing and implementing a National Water Supply and Sanitation Programme to attain SDGs; developing a Blue Print and action plan to strengthen the River Basin Development Authorities and creating partnerships as alternative sources of funding for projects.  Besides, the ministry has embarked on organisational reforms with a view to strengthening it. There exists now a professionalised Department of River Basin Operations and Inspectorate.

While working towards the success of the Roadmap, Adamu confirmed securing the approval for the National Water Resources Bill, National Water resources Policy and National Irrigation and Drainage Policy from the Federal Executive Council since September 2016. The National Water resources Bill is now before the National Assembly and when passed into law, will establish water sector governance. The Bill, though not new, rather an amalgamation of Water Resources Laws that has been in existence since 2004 and being re-enacted with what the necessary modifications to actualise current global trends and best practices in Integrated Water Resources management.

Although many did not understand all about the Bill, Adamu explains: “The federal government intends to ensure through the provisions of the law, that the water resources of the Nation are protected, used, developed, conserved, managed and controlled in a sustainable manner for the benefit of all person in accordance with its constitutional mandate.”

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QUOTE — While working towards the success of the Roadmap, Adamu confirmed securing the approval for the National Water Resources Bill, National Water resources Policy and National Irrigation and Drainage Policy from the Federal Executive Council since September 2016. The National Water resources Bill is now before the National Assembly and when passed into law, will establish water sector governance. The Bill, though not new, rather an amalgamation of Water Resources Laws that has been in existence since 2004 and being re-enacted with what the necessary modifications to actualise current global trends and best practices in Integrated Water Resources management