Benue govt executes 638 water projects in two years

PETER DURU
MAKURDI – The Benue State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency, BERWASA, has executed 638 water projects during the two-year tenure of the Samuel Ortom administration in Benue State.

General Manager of the Agency, Mr. Ejembi Ella, made this known yesterday after inspecting some of the projects in Tarka and Buruku Local Government areas.

He stated that the projects were executed in partnership between the state government, the Department For International Development, DFID, and the United Nations Childrens Fund, UNICEF, under the Sanitation, Hygiene and Water in Nigeria, SHAWN, project in eight local governments in the state.

Mr. Ella stated that “out of the figure, 594 were hand pumps while 44 were motorised boreholes. We have also rehabilitated over 344 others across the state.”

He listed the benefiting local government areas to include Ogbadigbo, Obi, Oju, Tarka, Buruku, Guma, Konshisha and Katsina-Ala.

The Geberal Manager said “this feat was achieved with the payment of over N600 million counterpart fund by Governor Ortom and with the availability of funds more local Government areas would be covered in the SHAWN program.”

In the sanitation area, he explained that “197 VIP latrines have been built across the state during the period under review while 2000 communities have been declared open defecation free as a results of efforts of the Agency over the years.”

He urged the local councils who had been slated for the scale up programs but were not benefiting to pay the required funds to the agency to enable them benefit from the Water and Sanitation projects and commended Guma, Apa and Okpokwu for already doing so.

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