Taraba To Benefit From USAID 23 Billion Naira Funds
Taraba state Water Board is to benefit from a Twenty Three Billion Naira intervention provided by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for Effective Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Services (E-WASH) for six states in Nigeria.
The general Manager of the Board Mr Sani Buba Siam disclosed this on Thursday at a media round table meeting organized by the board for journalists in Jalingo.
Siam said that Taraba, along side Imo, Sokoto, Abia, Niger and Delta states were selected to benefit from the sixty five Million Dollars intervention after a competitive examination of indicated interests.
He disclosed that the Taraba State government has already granted the board partial autonomy and has commenced the legal process of making the agency a fully autonomous entity.
According to Siam, “only one in every six persons living in Taraba state has access to portable water supply.
This is a very disturbing statistics, he said.
The state government has intensified efforts to make sure that this trend is corrected.
That is why this intervention by the USAID is such a priority to us.
“You recall that there is currently an ongoing project funded by the African Development Bank in the area of water supply. This is aimed at ensuring at least eighty percent coverage of Jalingo. However the state government feels that this is not enough and has come up with the Taraba water ways which is a state project to further boost the water supply to the state.
“Unfortunately, our water agency in the state has been operating at a lose all along, where we spend seven to eight million Naira monthly and earn between two and three million Naira in return.
“That is why the state government has decided to make the agency an autonomous agency. So far we are enjoying partial autonomy already and the process in underway to ensure full autonomy and financial independent.
The E-WASH program, expected to last for four years is aimed at making states water agencies more financially viable and independent so that the people in turn would enjoy stable and sustained water supply and a cleaner and more hygienic environment for the states.
