Mbah Ends Scarcity in Enugu, Inaugurates Ninth Mile Water Scheme
Gideon Arinze in Enugu
Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah, has inaugurated the Ninth Mile Water Scheme in keeping with his campaign promise of providing potable water to households within Enugu metropolis in the first 180 days.
The water scheme, according to the governor, has the capacity to deliver 70 million litres of water daily to businesses and families in the first phase.
Inaugurating the project yesterday, Mbah said it was fundamental to the achievement of his administration’s objective to take the state’s GDP from the current position of $4.4billion to $30billion within the next four to eight years.
Mbah said that his administration would also inaugurate new pumps in Oji water scheme to enable the delivery of another 50 million litres, taking the total amount to 120million litres which is about twice the daily demand of Enugu urban.
The governor explained that there was disbelief in several quarters when his administration communicated the promise because successive administrations have made unsuccessful attempts to address the widespread water scarcity in the state.
“For over 20 years, families had to queue endlessly to fetch water from tanker trucks who supplied in a very unreliable and epileptic fashion,” Mbah said. “Businesses such as hotels, hospitals were also forced to invest in extensive water infrastructure.”
He, however, noted that with the project, businesses in Enugu can now connect to public water and pay monthly water rates like is the practice in other advanced environments, adding that those who have invested in water tankers can put them up for sale and free up capital for other uses.
The governor explained that everything that has been achieved so far on the project was done through the state internally generated revenue, adding that the $50 million grant from the French Development Agency (AFD) would be used for further expansion.
“We still have our rural areas, where clean water availability is still not assured, we must now begin to examine and deploy creative location specific water supply solutions across all the local government areas,” he said.
He noted that potable water has come to stay in Enugu because the state is sitting on water like Coal, adding that his administration has also built 4.4 megawatts of gas power plants to augment the primary source of electricity which will ensure that water is constantly supplied to residents.
He called on residents in the state to ensure that the pipes going into various residential areas as well as other infrastructure are protected against vandalism, warning that anybody caught vandalising or stealing any components will face the wrath of the law.
