The minister of water resources, Engineer Suleiman Adamu on Tuesday said the federal government would commercialize four river basin development authorities in the country.
He said the ministry of water resources in collaboration with the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) was working towards partial and later full commercialisation of Sokoto Rima, Upper Niger, Ogun-Osun and Niger Delta Development Authorities.
He also lamented the spate of abandoned projects across the country and sought for the intervention of the National Assembly.
The minister spoke during the 2022 budget defence of the House of Representatives Committee on Water Resources held in Abuja.
He said “We are working on four river basin development authorities with Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) towards partial and then full commercialisation. They are Sokoto Rima, Upper Niger, Ogun-Osun and Niger Delta basin development authority”.
“These are the pilot projects, eventually, we want to commercialise all the 12 River basins, but we are starting with these four as a pilot project to see how far we can go”.
He noted that the project was not going to happen in one year, saying it is going to be a continuous process, “so what we learnt from that one, then we will now multiply it to other River basins”.
According to Adamu, the federal government was not planning to construct more dams for now, stressing that “because we have more than enough in our hands, we want to finish the ones in our hands before we can commit to new one.
“We are not saying that totally we are not doing new one, but any dam we are building must have economic value, like hydro power and even that one it is not federal government that want to commit it’s money, we want private investors to come so that they can build these dams on BOT”.
“As I speak to you now, we have about seven investors that are looking at various hydro power projects across the country that they want to bring in their money”.
On abandoned projects, he urged the lawmakers to intervene saying projects litter to rot, “the National Assembly need to critically look at this issue because we are wasting a lot of resources and something need to be done”.
Speaking on Kagara dam in Niger state and other abandoned dams across the country, Adamu said “We have made a provision of N750million in the budget for 2022 to restart that project”
“As you know we inherited a lot of projects, 37 dam projects, so we had to prioritize. There are projects that is 70-80 percent completed, so we have priority 1, 2, 3,.
“In this 2022 budget, we have prioritised 20 projects that we feel we can finish between now and 2023. And all these projects you see we are doing, 95 percent or more were inherited.
The minister however bemoaned “we have 400 dams today in this country, many of them are not being put to use”.
Consequently, Adamu enjoined the House of Representatives in the 2022 budget of the ministry to accord special attention to the water sector in a bid to continue to contribute to National Development.
“The ministry will continue to carry out its mandate more efficiently and effectively with the understanding and support of this Committee” Adamu said.
Earlier, Chairman of the House Committee on Water Resources Hon. Sada Soli urged members of the Committee to seek clarification on any grey area of the 2022 budget for proper legislation on appropriation.
Specifically, Hon. Ganiyu Johnson sought clarification on a retreat held by the ministry while reviewing the 2021 budget.
In a response the minister said “The retreat was a presidential retreat, by the Office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation (OSGF)”.
Conclusively, the chairman accepted the presentation and announced that the budget has been admitted by the committee.
“The committee accept the budget of the ministry and is hereby admitted” Soli said.
