Badaru at the commissioning of water supply scheme in Jigawa
*As it equally handed over four of the eight Gari irrigation project
By Haidar M. Aliyu
The perennial water shortage bedeviling Kazaure and its environs has become a thing of the past with the official commissioning and handing over of N3.7bn Kazaure water scheme supply.
Hotpen reports that the water project scheme was started 36 years under General Muhammadu Buhari`s military regime but was later abandoned, in 1998 the project was revisited by the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) under the General Sani Abacha military regime and has not seeing the light of the day until now President Muhammad Buhari`s APC led government completed it and handed over to Jigawa state government.
Speaking during the handing over ceremony in Gada, Kazaure local government, the minister of water resources, Engr. Suleiman Adamu, the Kazaure water project wil supply 10million liters per day with 500,000 people to have portable drinking water, added that it was amongst the numerous water interventions program including 302 water points executed by federal government in Jigawa state
The minister explained that, the project has met the national and international standard saying provision of portable drinking water to teeming populace is the responsibility of three tiers of government, the federal, state and local governments.
He stated further that Jigawa state is number two in the area of provision of clean and portable drinking water to its citizen in the country, commended Jigawa state for upholding its commitment in the memorandum of understanding for the execution of the project signed in 2018.
Said he:-“The state government financed the 28.6 kilometers water pipeline reticulation for the distribution of the water, as we handover this project today the state and local government are now responsible for the maintenance of the facility “.
In his speech during the occasion, Governor Muhammad Badaru Abubakar commended Federal government for executing the project and other related intervention which make it possible for Jigawa state to achieve 92% provision of clean water, and ranked second to among the states of the federation.
He promised to collaborate with the federal government to deployed professionals for services and maintenance of the water treatment plant for effective utilization.
Also speaking, the emir of Kazaure, Dr Najib Hussaini Adamu has called on general public to take ownership of the project and also ensure prompt payment of their water bill.
In a related development, the federal government through minister of water resources, Engr. Suleiman Adamu has formally handed over four of the eight Gari irrigation project in Kano and Jigawa with thousands of farmers to farm at least three times in a year from the area.
Eng. Sulaiman Adamu in his speech said the Gari irrigation project covers approximately 2,114 hectares supplied with water from Gari and Marke dams in the north-eastern part of Kunchi local government area under Kano state.
The minister explained that the irrigation and drainage infrastructure fall within five local government areas of Kazaure, Roni, Kunchi, Dambatta and Makoda respectively, said the project was first initiated by the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) in 1997 explaining that the scope of the project was to develop 2,114 hectares of irrigation farmland in both Kano and Jigawa states.
He said the irrigation work suffered 20 years neglect due to lack of funding thereby causing the already finished parts to deteriorate.
Hotpen report that, already over 6, 000 hectares of irrigation land has been developed and is currently cultivating no less than 150,000 tons of rice every year, while the rough estimate of the rice produced in the area amounts to over 6,000 trailer loads of harvested rice produced from the area.
