From Sola Ojo, Abuja
The Kaduna State Government has disclosed that it undertook a comprehensive six-month review of its water sector in 2023, aimed at improving access to quality, potable water across the state.
This initiative came in response to inherited plans to concession key water infrastructure, a move the current administration deemed unfavorable.
Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr. Ibrahim Hamza, made this known while assessing the state’s performance under the Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (SURWASH) programme.
According to him, when Governor Uba Sani assumed office, he met concluded arrangements to concession the state’s 12 water treatment plants valued at nearly N2.5 trillion to a private company for 25 years.
However, a detailed review revealed that the proposed arrangement would have yielded minimal returns to the state.
“We discovered that the concession plan was not in the best interest of Kaduna people.
“The company in question lacked the technical expertise to manage such critical infrastructure, and the returns to the state were insignificant”, he said.
To salvage the situation, the government declared a state of emergency in the water sector and constituted a stakeholders’ committee to draft a revival plan.
SURWASH was then identified as one of the key funding avenues, but the government remains the primary driver of the sector’s transformation.
Dr. Hamza further explained that Kaduna, alongside other states like Delta, Ekiti, Gombe, Katsina, and Plateau, initially struggled with the SURWASH programme due to its unfamiliar performance-based model, known as Performance for Results (P4R), developed by the World Bank.
Following a mid-term review in 2024, which involved top state and national stakeholders, Kaduna realigned its strategy, where the state committed to significant investments, supported by advance payments from the World Bank