The Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE) Apapa Branch has appealed to the Lagos State Government to do everything within its power to make potable water readily available to residents.
Mr. Christian Ufot, the NSE Apapa Branch Chairman made the appeal in Lagos on Monday when speaking at a news conference organized to announce activities lined up for the celebration of the 2022 Engineering Week in Lagos.
According to Ufot, the society has continued to make the welfare of the masses its focal point, and is dedicated to proffering solutions to challenges associated with public service delivery.
He said that an area of concern had been the supply of pipe borne water to residents across the state, stating that it is the main reason the society usually pays courtesy visits to key organizations every year as part of its activities to mark the Engineering week.
“We will suggest that government makes potable water supply to residents a top priority. The indiscriminate drilling of boreholes across the state is as a result of non-availability of potable water, and I must say that this act of drilling causes underground water pollution,” he said.
The chairman pointed out that when a better alternative has been provided, it would become easy for anyone to discard the already existing one.
Ufot recalled that in the past, there were pipe borne water, and then a time came when it was no longer available resulting to people having to cater for themselves.
“So, with that, we decided that we needed to pay a visit to the state Water Corporation, and during the visit, we were able to identify challenges being faced by the corporation. One of such challenges is finance; the budgetary provision for the corporation is really not sufficient, that is on one part.
“On the other part, facilities that have been there probably in the 1960s, such as pipes, are already rusted and leaking. So, when water is pumped and distributed through those pipes, maybe, up to about 50 percent will be wasted through such leakages. So, in our houses, when water should be flowing, it is gushing out into the gutter somewhere and not getting to the end users,” Ufot stated.
He noted that these, coupled with the massive increase of population in the state, were some of the challenges the corporation faced.
The chairman said the corporation needed funds to replace pipes, stating also that the corporation has also been making their own presentation to the government in a bid to ensure that the challenges are tackled.
He added that much as it sounded good and commendable, the government too may be faced with paucity of funds, as there were many other issues too jostling for its attention.
Mr. Ufot urged the government to pay crucial attention saying that things could go wrong without clean water as water-borne diseases could easily develop.
