What the next governor of Lagos State should do for us
We started our wish list for the next governor with power supply at the top of the list last week. Power supply and water supply somehow go together as we have never had enough of either of them. We have always had the sun to get us this far.
Electricity-newSomeone I have known all my life did say about 35 years ago that government should provide adequate power and water and leave us to do all the other things ourselves.
He possibly said this from the realisation that insufficient water supplies force many people to spend inordinate amounts of time and effort securing water for their daily use.
About twelve years ago, a public survey asked people to indicate which was more important, water supply or regular power supply.
The choice was largely in favour of regular power supply. Our recent adversity with the ebola virus disease has brought water, personal and public hygiene to the fore.
Unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation bring illness and chronic disease to our population so we have to demand for safe drinking water to ward off illness and disease.
The Lagos State Government, LASG, is executing expansion works at its major water works at Iju, Adiyan and Isasi. There are also plans for a new water supply system centered on Odomola, Epe Division that would take its raw water from the River Osun.
Since it is now accepted that everyone must have safe drinking water, how much of our population is covered by all the existing water schemes?
The Lagos State Water Corporation, LSWC, should carry out a comprehensive survey of the whole state covering all the neighbourhoods and report on the availability or lack of pipe-borne water in each neighbourhood.
The Lagos State Water Regulatory Commission should validate and publish the report such that anyone left out can complain. For example, there are places like the Igbobi-Onipanu neighbourhoods along the Ikorodu Road that had pipeline water supply ages ago but for several years now they have not been served.
The next governor should have special intervention programmes to restore supply to such neighbourhoods and also to bring supply to areas that have never been served by building mini waterworks. The LSWC charges N500 per month for supply to a flat.
To my knowledge, there is a neighbourhood where a tanker supplies 4000 litres for N7000 and a family of six spends N28000 per month for water supply.
The minimum that should be done for such a neighbourhood is for the LSWC to provide safe drinking water in tankers at not more than N8000 per month, or put differently at N2000 for a 4000 litre supply.
The earlier a mini waterworks is provided in such neighbourhoods, the better as any economic analysis would show a reasonable return on investment within a few years.
More than 35 years ago, there were plans to build high-capacity elevated water tanks in concrete at selected locations in the Lagos metropolis.
There was to be one located in the Costain roundabout area to serve the Lagos Mainland while there would be one on Lagos Island and one on Victoria Island amongst others.
The government should commence construction of these tanks, starting with the one at the Costain roundabout area.
These elevated tanks would be the landmarks of a new Lagos, signifying an intention to bring greater convenience into our everyday lives.
These high capacity elevated tanks would remove the need for us to have ground tanks and associated pumps at each dwelling and whether there is power supply locally or not, water would be available to all the homes supplied from the high-capacity tanks. Next week, we look at food supplies.
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