‘Why Rivers Ranks Low In Wash’

The Head of planning,
monitoring and evaluation of the Rivers State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), Mr Napoleon Adah has attributed the low ranking of Rivers State among other states in the country on water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) on poor funding.
Mr Adah who said this in a telephone interview with The Tide in Port Harcourt, said that the state Government and the 23 Local Government Areas have also failed to prioritise water sanitation and hygiene in their areas.
According to him, there is urgent need to carryout advocacy mobilisation and sensitization workshop on the need for WASH deportments in the various Local Government Areas, of the state.
Meanwhile, stakeholders have criticised the 36 state governments for their failure to pay their outstanding contributions for water and sanitation facilities in the country.
This was contained in a communiqué made available to newsmen at the end of a joint review meeting of the European Union and sanitation sector Reform project in Nigeria (WSSSRP II, WSSSRP I and NDSP) in Abuja.
According to the communiqué, government should approved and release outstanding contribution for water and sanitation facilities construction not later than August 2015.
It urged the various levels of government in the country to prioritise institutional and capacity development by enacting policy and regulatory framework.
It listed obstacles against progress in the WASH sector to include, low prioritization of WASH programme by some state governments, decay in release of Government contributions thereby constraining achievements of results for water and sanitation in schools and communities.
The rest include, weak implementation capacities in some local government areas poor supportive structure for monitoring of success in communities due to inadequate budget  and others.