The Rivers State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA) has admonished stakeholders involved in providing and financing water services to ensure best practices and ensure the water being produced remains safe for consumers.

Acting General Manager of RUWASSA, Napoleon Adah said this at the South-South Zonal Dissemination Workshop on the Nigeria WASH Account Report held between Wednesday and Thursday, September 27 and 28, 2023 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

The Workshop was organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and United Nations Children’s Fund with WASH members from Southern Nigeria and other stakeholders and agencies in attendance.

“The message is for those who are supposed to provide good facilities, especially, the Federal Government and state government and local government that WASH services and business should be taken seriously.”

“Considering the fact that what we are doing is a kind of preventive measure, people don’t believe in curative measures, we believe in prevention.”

“Like we know, water is life and sanitation is dignity. These are the kind of pro hygiene messages that we are sending out to our people. That is the only way we can be healthy and eradicate diseases in and around our communities.” 

He explained that the aim of the gathering is to map the total expenditure in the provision of WASH services between 2019 and 2023, noting that WASH is planning on touring the 23 local government areas in Rivers State to sensitize the people on water and hygiene, urging government at all levels to fund the WASH units in their jurisdiction.

“WASH is in the 23 LGAs in Rivers State and as I speak, myself and the Director of WASH will be touring around 23 local governments of the state for sensitization and advocacy for the water sector and hygiene issues.”

“WASH officers are very active and have been going round the various communities talking to the people and if they are properly funded, they will do more. So, we are appealing to all local government chairmen to ensure that wash units in their local governments are well funded.”

Also speaking, the National Consultant on Public Health and Environment of the WHO in Nigeria, Edwin Edeh said there are established plans and agenda to address Sustainable Development Goal 6, appealing to members of the public to maintain public infrastructure to encourage its sustainability.

“There are already established plans, policies and agendas of the government to address SDG 6, and in these plans, there are also state-level action plans developed by each of the States to domesticate all of these policies in terms of making sure that in various settings at the health facilities, there are specific measures to ensure that essential sanitation and hygiene services are provided with specific guidelines, covering, integrating IPC and all of that, also at the community levels. Those measures are already out there.”

“From the results we have today, the data has shown that there is a gap in terms of financing of drinking water service in Nigeria in terms of essential sanitation services in Nigeria from what we have in the report. So, why we are here today is, actually, to ensure that the WASH leaders at the State level understand clearly what they need to do and how they can use this data to mobilize resources and political will at the grassroots, so that the needed action people want to see can happen.” 

 “So, the key thing is that water sanitation is crucial for development. It’s crucial for preventing disease outbreak including cholera and other waterborne diseases. It’s also crucial for promoting anti-microbial stewardship, and to thrive other economic activities in our local communities.”

“However, if you look at the status of water situation in the country, you will see that we have gaps, we have 48 million Nigerians who practice open defecation, we have, only 70% of the population have basic access to drinking water services, and in most of the states across, only 70 percent have access to basic drinking water services, 48million practice open defecation.”

“Now one of the key gaps to all of these is that the amount of money we spent or invest as a government, as a people into water sanitation is very, very long. We talk about 0.2, 3% of our GDP. So, the greater your investment, the more the reward, and if you look at most of these investments, over 80% of these investment is coming from out of pocket expenditure from people from various houses so an average Nigerian spends about 19,055 naira on water situation energy annually.”

On her part, the Director, Water Quality Control and Sanitation in the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation, Elizabeth Ugo explained that the essence of the WASH account workshop was to track financing trajectories and what it helps them achieve.

“This WASH account report is a product of what we call the tracking initiative in the World Health Organisation and what does the report do? It tracks financing in water sanitization. It tracks financing in and through the entities.”

“We look at the three levels of government. We look at the private sector. We look at the household. We look at the development partners and we look at the NGOs. So, these are the entities we look at; what are they bringing into WASH? What percentage like for the development partners?”

“They have commitment or they said they are supporting with so, so amount. So, we will, by doing this report, we will know actually, are they bringing what they say? The report will show.”

Meanwhile, the Director, Planning, Research and Statistics in the Rivers State Ministry of Water Resources Rural Development, Mabel Amesi noted that from the record, so far, they were not doing optimally.

“From the records so far, the states are not doing optimally because the aim is not being achieved. What I mean is you find out that households are still bearing the brunt of providing water for themselves and carrying out hygiene activities. It’s for the government.”

“This workshop is actually to equip us to equip the agencies, the ministries and agencies with enough information so that we can convince our governments, our local governments to invest more in the water sector. So that the populace will have more water delivered to them, hygienic water.”