After spending more than N3 billion on water resources in the last three years, the Niger State Government says it will require additional N55 billion to resolve the problem of water scarcity affecting major towns and cities in the state.
Apart from the plant being abandoned, the Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr Ibrahim Sule, also blamed the persistent water scarcity in the state on obsolete mechanical systems of the water plants.
Sule, who disclosed this to newsmen at a briefing in Minna yesterday, said that N155 billion will go a long way in solving the problem of low water supply in the state.
He lamented that since the construction of water plants across the state decades ago, no renovation or overhauling had been done, explaining that maintenance of the plants should be undertaken every four years.
But he regretted that all the plants had been abandoned, over-stressed and left unattended to, thereby leaving the plants to function far below demand.
Sule stated that the current government inherited a dilapidated water board, but with the purchase of high and low lift pumps and a 100kva generator to power the Chachanga water works, water supply in and around the environs of the state capital had improved.