Against the claim of the Oyo State Water Corporation Agency that 12 out of its 22 waterworks are functioning, the Oyo State House of Assembly has insisted that the residents of the State do not enjoy water supply.
The agency made the claim in a report submitted to the lawmakers during its summon session at the Tuesday’s plenary, following the motion moved previous week by Hon. Isiaka Tunde Kazeem representing Oyo East/Oyo West State constituency.
According to the seven pages report presented by the Acting Managing Director, Oyo State Water Corporation, Mr. Samuel Adegboyega, waterworks are functioning at 80, 80, 50, 70, 70, 70, 50, 50, 60, 50, 100 and 80 percent respectively in Asejire phase 1&2, Eleyele, Oyo, Iseyin Koso, Iseyin Atori, Ogbomoso, Eruwa, Saki, Igbeti, Ago-Amodu, Iganna and Ajinapa.
Condemning what he described as falsehood, the Majority Leader of the house, Hon. Sanjo Adedoyin representing Ogbomoso South noted that less than two per cent of Ogbomoso zone have access to pipe borne water from the agency.
He said that the claim on the report that 70 percent of Ogbomoso residents are enjoying water supply at 6,600 capacity is not just bogus but deceptive.
Making reference to the report on the new projects status at the agency, the Speaker of the house, Rt. Hon. Adebo Ogundoyin observed that despite the agency’s ineffectiveness, it approved 9 contracts between November 2018 to April 2019, while the immediate past administration was already rounding up.
“From this report, your agency awarded 13 contracts between 2011 and 2019, which is eight year. But to my amazement, nine of this 13 contracts were awarded at the tail end of the last administration.
“These contracts were awarded, about 1.3billion naira was released within five months to different contractors and still water is not flowing in our pipes across the State,” he added.
In his words, Hon. Adebayo Babajide representing Ibadan North Constituency 2 lamented the recklessness of the agency’s contractors towards damaging road infrastructure.
He said, “Our people are complaining on how your contractors go about digging our roads, claiming they are fixing water pipes and at the end pot-holes are created on the road and no water at least to compensate.”
The agency’s acting Managing Director, Samuel Adegboyega earlier described making water available for the use of the people of Oyo State and also for agricultural purposes, as the vision of the agency which he has being overseeing as Acting manager for three years.
He noted that the major problem of water corporation in the State is availability of chemicals especially aluminium sulfate.
He said, “We need at least 6000 metrics tons of aluminium sulfate yearly. Some part of our constitution are also obsolete and no longer workable.
“For instance, our law stated that anyone that damages water pipe, should be made to pay 20 naira, another one says 40 naira. This are also setback to us as an agency”.
While speaking to newsmen after the plenary, Rt. Hon. Adebo Ogundoyin said the activities, records and inefficiency of the State Water Corporation needed to be investigated to ensure the State resources are used appropriately for the good of the people.
“Today, we have setup a committee which involve lawmakers across the five zones of Oyo State to visit the agencies facilities, it ongoing projects and check their books.
“After this, we may be inviting the immediate former commissioner for environment and natural resources, the former Permanent Secretary and all the contractors that have one or two questions to answer,” he added.
