Cross River State Government says it will exceed the United Nation’s Millennium Development Gaol’s (MDGS) No 7, target 3 which seeks to reduce, by halve, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. This is sequel to the robust water scheme rolled out since 2005 when the $116m Africa Development Bank assist water project was commissioned.
Managing Director, Cross Rivers State Water Board Limited, Elemi Etowa, who disclosed this to newsmen during the weekly ministerial interaction in Calabar, stated that in order to achieve the full implementation of the project, the state has concluded modalities to draw from the Honkun Shangai Banking Corporation, the sum of $42 million to enable it expand the project. This is in addition to the World Bank assistance of the sum of $50 million, which will provide 70 per cent of the populace with access to portable water.
He continued that that the scheme, which, since its inception was a public private partnership management with a French firm, Ortech (Nig) Limited, at the helm, shall be successfully implemented. Etowa stated that it is the success recorded by the board while implementing the ADB’s scheme that attracted the World Bank’s assistance without an iota of counterpart fund and the Asian Bank which bid would soon be published for take off of the programme.
Eng. Etowa, who stated that after the take-off of the ADB assisted scheme in 2005, the World Bank came in and identified densification gap in Calabar, which stood at 5000 house connection and decided to expand Obubra. According to him, with the Rural Water and Sanitation Agency (RUWATSA) provision for motorised boreholes across all the communities in the state, the state will no doubt reach its set target.
