Kebbi Commissioner Promises 3m-Liter Water Supply Daily
The Kebbi State Commissioner for Water Resources, Alhaji Bello Ka’oje says the State Waterboard shall sustain 3 million litres of water supply to Birnin Kebbi per day to ameliorate the suffering of residents following TCN transformers fire outbreak.
The commissioner made the disclosure shortly after an inspection tour of state waterboard facilities in the state capital on Wednesday.
He said the essence of the tour was to ensure adequate supply of portable water to residents of Birnin Kebbi to cushion the effects of power outage on the 90MVA (330KV/132KV) and 60MVA (132KV/33KV) transformers belonging to Transmition Company of Nigeria (TCN) destroyed as a result of a fire incident that occurred on Thursday, Sept. 14.
“We have gone round all the water stations in the metropolis right from Dukku to bye water and other substations in the state capital. The affected areas are Birnin Kebbi, the state capital and Argungu.
“Yauri and Zuru are not part of the problem because they get their power supply from Shiroro and we are very sure they have adequate water supply,” he said.
Ka’oje said the efforts to ensure adequate water supply to residents of Birnin Kebbi was informed by the directives given by Governor Nasir Idris in view of his concern for the common people.
He said: “His Excellency insists that he doesn’t want his people to suffer because of lack of electricity, that’s why he approved substential amount of money for the supply of diesel and other lubricants to power generators of the state waterboard in different locations to enable people get portable water supply.
“This we have done and people are very happy about it. In the morning, our generators do start work from 5:00 or 6:00a.m. to 10:00a.m. and in the evening from 4:00p.m. to 7:00p.m., from there, we discharge water to the public.”
The commissioner lauded the efforts of the waterboard management as well as technical staff who according to him, left no stone unturned “as far as potable water supply is concerned in this trying period.”
“As you can see, myself and my technical team, we are all out for the last five days working round the clock to ensure that we dodn’t have shortage of water supply in the state capital,” he assured.
The commissioner confirmed that because of the high demand for diesel, the price per litre had been increased from N800 to almost N1,000 in view of the fact that the problem affected three states of Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara States.
Ka’oje appealed to residents of Birnin Kebbi to exercise little patience as the TCN engineers alongside their technical staff were tirelessly working to restore electricity to the state capital and neighbouring states, hopefully by Thursday.