Gombe State Governor Inuwa Yahaya yesterday flagged off construction of five water booster stations to improve water supply in the state.
Flagging off the multi billion naira project, the governor said the Dadin-Kowa water treatment plant which supplies water to the state was commissioned about 15 years ago, when the population of Gombe State was around 2.6 million.
According to him, the state’s population has grown to over 3.6 million now due to rapid urbanization and influx of people fleeing the Boko Haram insurgency from frontline states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, adding that the development puts tremendous pressure on the provision of basic social services like water, sanitation, health and education.
“When I came to office in 2019, the water treatment plant at Dadin-Kowa was in a state of disrepair and had over N5 billion in unpaid obligations to contractors and suppliers.
“Within the first 100 days in office, I commissioned a taskforce with the mandate to address the water situation in Gombe metropolis. Through these interventions, we mobilized contractors and undertook essential repairs and rehabilitation of water distribution channels which enabled us to pump about 50 million liters of water daily to Gombe and its environs,” he said.
The governor also said that his administration had built and rehabilitated over 600 boreholes across the 11 local government areas of the state and partnered the federal government to expand water supply under this project.
Also speaking, the minister of water resources, Sulaiman Adamu, said the federal government partnered Gombe State to deliver sustainable water and sanitation facilities across the state in line with the national water supply and sanitation policy.
He said the federal government was committed to addressing water and sanitation challenges through collaborative funding with states governments.
To establish the water booster stations, the project was awarded under 70:30 funding arrangement between the state government and the federal government which will provide 165 kilometers distribution network to connect under-served communities.
