Ministry Registers 400 Water Producers, 100 Drillers, Others … Vows To Check Quackery

The Rivers State Ministry of Water Resources and Rural Development says it has so far registered 400 water producers, 100 borehole drillers and 15 water quality testing laboratory owners in its portal.
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Mr Ebenezer Kalio disclosed this at the just concluded stakeholders’ forum on water management and regulation, organised by the ministry in Port Harcourt. The forum has as its theme: “Safe Water for Healthy Life.”
Kalio said the ministry under the current administration is doing so much to sanitise the water sector of quackery, adding that some remarkable innovations have been carried out in line with the State Water Sector Reform law No. 7 of 2012.
According to him, in line with the reform, a portal that seeks to identify different practitioners in the water industry was created.
Speaking on the topic: ‘Checking Quackery in the Borehole Drilling Industry,’ the Director, Water Supply, Quantity Control and Sanitation in the Ministry, Engr Amatemeso Emmanuel, decried the influx of quacks into the water industry.
He said the situation had led to saturation of poor quality table waters in the street.
Emmanuel also said some waters were produced in unhygienic environment thereby putting the lives of consumers at risk of contracting waterborne diseases such as typhoid and others.
He stressed the need for the public to cooperate with the authorities by reporting persons who have no appropriate licenses to be in the water sector for appropriate disciplinary measures, adding that it is by so doing that the trend can be checked.
While declaring the meeting opened, the State Commissioner for Water Resources and Rural Development, Dr Tamunosisi Gogo Jaja, said the government was doing everything possible to sanitise the sector of quackery.
Gogo Jaja blamed the causes of most water related illnesses such as: typhoid, cholera and others to the consumption of poor quality water and charged water distributors and consumers to ensure that they knew the source of water before selling them.

The Commissioner said the ministry plans to give certification to water producers who have undergone the ministry’s quality water sample testing exercise.