The Federal Government say it will spend a total of N505.6bn on 116 ongoing water projects across the country.

It also stated its total outstanding liabilities to contractors handling some water projects was N88.8bn as at 2015.

The Minister of Water Resources, Mr. Suleiman Adamu, gave the indication during the public presentation of the road map for the water sector tagged: Immediate and long-term strategies for water sector, 2016 – 2030, in Abuja.

He also said that the current national access to water supply in Nigeria was 69 per cent, adding that 31 per cent or 52.7 million Nigerians had no access to potable water.

“It is imperative to change the trend to achieve 100 per cent access to water supply for our citizens by the year 2030 (the Sustainable Development Goals target year), when the population is estimated to grow to about 257 million,” he said.

On the projects, the minister stated that some of the contracts handled by the ministry had been stalled for up to 15 years.

He said, “A total of 116 projects are ongoing. The total contract cost for these projects is N505.57bn and most of them are at 40 to 60 per cent level of completion. Some of these projects have been stalled for up to 15 years. The total outstanding liabilities for ongoing projects is N88.85bn as at 2015.

“Of this sum, N66.88bn is for the main ministry’s projects while N20.97bn is for River Basin Development Agency projects. The total contractual commitment to completion is N264.99bn and our focus is on prioritisation and completion of ongoing projects.”

According to the minister, out of the 116 ongoing water sector projects, 38 are for irrigation and water drainage; 37 for dams, and 41 for water supply.

Adamu stressed that the ongoing projects would be prioritised based on already established criteria, which included stage/time of completion, cost of completion, envisaged impact on citizens and the economy, age of abandonment and overall project viability.

The minister said, “Out of the 116 projects, 38 are prioritised based on the following criteria: irrigation drainage, 10 projects; dams, 13 projects; and water supply, 15 projects. For new projects, only fully prepared with detailed engineering designs and all other relevant bid documents will be considered.”