The Director, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Water Board Engr. Jibrin Ibrahim has assured residents of Abuja of a more stable and steady supply of water once the board commissions its on-going projects by the second quarter of this year.
Ibrahim made the remark while explaining to an Engineering Regulatory Monitoring (ERM) team from the Council for the Regulation of Engineering Nigeria (COREN) efforts by the board to provide potable water for the growing population of Abuja residents.
He stated that the target of the board was to cut down the rate of water borne diseases by 50 per cent once the project is completed, generate revenue and also ease women and children the stress of going long distances to get drinkable water.
“Residents of Zone 1, 2 and 4 have adequate water supply because they are located at the lower plane of the city, while Asokoro located at the higher plane lacks water because our tanks are lower than the settlement.
“That is why we have embarked on some capital projects, like the design and construction of a booster station overhead tanks, pipe fittings, pipeline installation valves and civil works by our in-house engineers.”
The director further stated that the board had been able to control wastages effectively and this had help to improve coverage of constant water supply.?
“We have also improved our revenue collection profile from about N700 million to over N2 billion annually through innovations,” he added.
The chief inspector of ERM, Engr. Umar Gambo Jibrin lamented the under-utilisation of Nigerian engineers, saying this had slowed down the development of the nation.
“Most often people think that it is only when there are collapses or building failures that ERM comes to monitor engineers, but as you can see, we go on routine checks like this to prevent such occurrences from happening.’’
He commended the efforts of engineers in the board for improvising in the absence of basic equipment and charged the government to utilise the capacity of Nigerian engineers fully.