Austine Odo
28 October 2008
The Benue State government is to extend water supply to rural communities through dams and small water treatment plants that can be reticulated to supply water within the villages.
This is in addition to the on-going work on a new N4.9 billion water treatment plant meant to supply 100,000 cubic litres of water daily being handled by Gilmor Nigeria Limited. Special Adviser, Media and Public Affairs to the state governor,
Mr Cletus Akwaya told newsmen in Abuja recently that as a basic need, provision of water is among the top priorities of the Suswam administration, and that government found it of paramount importance to extend such infrastructure to the hinterland to enable more people benefit.
"Government is looking at building dams from the budget we have. There are certain areas that we've decided in zone C that we'll build dams and put small water treatment plants that can be reticulated to supply water within those villages, but we are doing boreholes, it is an on-going thing. The present requirement for Makurdi alone is about 45,000. So what we've decided to do is to build a completely new treatment plant that takes about 100,000 cubic liters of water per day. Gilmor Nig Ltd is handling it at a project cost of N4.9 billion with a completion period of 18 months. The same thing in Otukpo; we have awarded a contract for the construction of a proper water plant that will not only supply water to Otukpo , but also villages along the line leading to Otukpo. The same thing in Katsina Ala", he said.
Reacting to a recent petition against the state governor by Mr Uhundu, a former member of the House of Assembly, Akwaya said as an administration, they welcome criticisms and allow people to make comments in the spirit of the promotion of democracy, constitutional responsibility and promotion of the freedom of the individuals to express themselves. However, in this particular context, he said they found the content of that document a total fabrication, outright misrepresentation and peddling of falsehood, the aim of which "we find it difficult to understand we believe it's a kind of hatchet job by people against the government to probably create confusion in the state to be able to distract him from delivering his promises to the people. When we discovered that this is a possible reason for this document, we said it clearly to the people that this piece is a handiwork of mischief to slow down the momentum of transformation taking place in the state". On the allegation that government procured vehicles for traditional rulers at the cost of N19m, he said all supporting documents revealed that the vehicles were bought at N9.7m and not N19m. In another instance, he said Uhundu talked about the contract for greater Makurdi water works which was awarded at N4.9bn. By the terms of the contract agreement, the contractor was to be mobilised to the tune of 30 percent of the contract figure but due to inadequacy of funds, the state government was unable to mobilise the contractor in one fell swoop, so it paid the mobilisation in two instalments. "But perhaps to cause mischief, Uhundu claimed that the contractor was paid N2.9bn out of N4.9bn, this is completely untrue, and that part of the money was withheld by govt, this is a total fabrication and total misrepresentation of facts. For every allegation he made, we discovered that it is concocted, or the fact was deliberately misrepresented, and we find this distasteful", he said.
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