The Federal government through the Ministry of Water Resources has presented the Sectors Roadmap, tagged “Immediate and Long Term Strategies for the Water Sector 2016-2030”
The Minister of water resources Eng. Suleiman Adamu said the “Roadmap encompasses 8 major programmes /projects and targets 100% access to water for citizens by year 2030”
According to him, the 8 programmes encompassed in the programme includes establishing a policy and regulatory framework, organisation and manpower review and prioritisation and implementation of the Ministry’s projects among others”
“To actualise the Roadmap, we have identified a detailed implementation plan, the execution of which is now fully on course. In this regard, we are in strong collaboration with the federal ministries of agriculture, Power, Justice, Finance, Budget and National planning among others,” he said.
In his presentation of the Roadmap, he posited “that the current National access to water supply in 2015 stood at 69%, implying that 31% or 52.7 million Nigerians do not have access to water supply”
“It is imperative to change the trend to achieve 100% access to water supply to our citizens by the year 2030 ( the SDGs target year) when the population is estimated to grow to about 257million” he said
The minister maintained that the National Water Resources Master Plan indicates that Nigeria has a Hydro-power Potential of about 12,220MW, of which only about 1,930MW had been developed at Kainji, Jebba and Shiroro dams.
He further adding that “There are 17 existing dams with combined potential hydropower capacity of over 200 MW that are yet to be exploited