Kaduna Govt. Completes First Phase Of Zaria Water Project

The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has announced that the first phase of the 150 million litres per day Zaria water project (50 million litres), has been completed and will be commissioned in two months time.

 He assured the people of Zaria that the perennial water scarcity in the area will soon be a thing of the past as his administration is working hard to complete the the entire 150 million litres project before the end of 2018.

According to him, water would be supplied to residents of Zaria city, while other neighboring Local Government Areas would follow shortly after.

Over the years, Zaria and other surrounding communities in the northern part of Kaduna state, have faced difficulties in accessing potable water for both domestic, agricultural and industrial use.

Although started by previous administrations since 1999, the Zaria Regional water project has faced several challenges ranging from inadequate funding, cost variation and lack of political will that have delayed its early completion.

The present administration however decided to break the jinx as soon as it came into power, by reviewing the contract and addressing all bottlenecks that saw the contractors being mobilized to site.

The water project includes rehabilitation and replacement of some of the old pipes, construction of 7.3 kilometre transmission lines, construction of 10 reservoirs of six million litres each, construction of three bolster stations and dams, among other projects.

The governor, who was accompanied by top government officials during a tour of the project sites, expressed satisfaction with the progress of work by the contractors.

He, however, promised to complete the remaining water projects by April 2018.

“We are all happy with the progress of work, all the components of Zaria regional water supply scheme, the reservoirs, the transmission pipelines, everything is going on very well. We had initial hiccups but everything is on course. We are very happy.

“By the grace of God by the 27th of May, 2017 two days before we celebrate our mid term, we are coming to commission the 50 million litres per day plant. So we have fixed the day for the commissioning of the project and the people of Zaria  will begin to see  significant improvement in water supply.

“Other local government areas will follow shortly after that but by April 2018 everything will be completed”.

The sum of 69 billion Naira is however needed for completion of the project.