Water corporation spends N3.5m on damaged equipment in Lagos

The corporation’s Group Managing Director, Mr Shayo Holloway, made the disclosure in an interview with newsmen.Holloway said that the damages to the equipment were due to high voltage of electricity supply.He added that most of the corporation’s mini-water works were also affected by the “epileptic power supply”, which he said, damaged the equipment.“As at today, […]

The corporation’s Group Managing Director, Mr Shayo Holloway, made the disclosure in an interview with newsmen.
Holloway said that the damages to the equipment were due to high voltage of electricity supply.
He added that most of the corporation’s mini-water works were also affected by the “epileptic power supply”, which he said, damaged the equipment.
“As at today, we need to spend about N3.5 million to restore some of our equipment at Ajegule mini-water works damaged by high power voltage. This bad electricity supply has also affected our water works in Epe, Ibeju-Lekki, Ajegunle, Somolu, among others. We hardly receive four hours of power supply daily, which often affect our distribution network,’’ he said.
The group managing director said the corporation could not afford to run most of the mini- water works with generating sets.
“We spend millions of naira on diesel at N155 per litre, which the corporation can no longer cope with, due to huge amount of money required to invest in diesel to power our equipment”.
He said that the Independent Power Project (IPP), built by the state government, in Akute, in 2010, had contributed to the effective supply of water to Iju and Adiyan environs.
Holloway said that the corporation was also planning to link Onikan, Lekki, Dolphine, Victoria and Ikoyi mini-water works to IPP for effective water distribution.
“The responsibility of water agency is the production of water and not production of power in Nigeria, we are combining both.
He identified lack of effective revenue generation as a major challenge confronting the organisation, adding that most residents felt that water should be social service.
Holloway, however, disagreed with the people saying that “we treat water with lot of money’’.
He said that the corporation was partnering with Community Development Area (CDAs), on ways to address the problem of “long serve pipes” in the drainage.
The group managing director said that the corporation has also commenced metering of its customers for effective accountability.
Holloway added that the exercise has commenced in Ikeja and Lekki with installed meter of about 3,300 and 950, respectively. (NAN)