The Federal Government says it needs about $5 billion annually to meet water supply/sanitation component of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Suleiman Hussein Adamu, minister for water resources, disclosed this at the 3rd Founder’s Day Ceremony of Edo University Iyamho, Edo State, with the theme, “Water Sanitation and Hygiene for Sustainable Development,” said the current level of investment was less than half of a billion dollar.
Adamu said Nigeria was unable to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets for access to water supply and sanitation due to poor investments, low capacity and other challenges in the sub-sector.
“The national access to potable water and adequate sanitation, as at 2015, was 69 percent and 29 percent, respectively. However, national access to pipe-borne water supply is only at 7 percent,” he said.
Adamu, represented by Ahmed Saliu, managing director, Benin-Owena River Basin Development Authority, said as of 2015, more than 2 billion people globally were at the risk of reduced access to fresh water, about 2.4 billion people also lacked access to adequate sanitation while almost a billion people practiced open defecation.
The minister said the Buhari-led government inherited 116 abandoned projects in 2015, out of which 41 were water supply projects while 11 had been commissioned.
He said the Federal Government in 2016 undertook a technical audit and prioritised all the uncompleted and abandoned projects, saying the ministry was deploying most of its resources towards completing and commissioning all the high and medium priority projects from 2016-2020.
Earlier, Governor Godwin Obaseki said plans had been put in place to partner world-class universities in its quest to be one of the best institutions in the world.
“This was a goal we set out when we established this University. They’ve done well, but there’s still a lot to be done. Our goal is to make this University a global university, a university that can compare with anyone anywhere in the world. The benchmark is not Nigeria, it is the world. I want by the next ranking, this University being ranked among the best universities in the continent,” he said.
On his part, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Emmanuel Aluyor, said they were competing with global standards in terms of academics.
The institution’s aim is putting the Edo University on the map of the world as a world-class University, he said.
