Members of the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debt, yesterday kicked against President Muhammadu Buharis $700 million loan request to the National Assembly for Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene, (SURWASH), under the Ministry of Water Resources.
This is coming 24 hours after the Ministry of Health appeared before the committee to seek approval for $200 million loans for procurement of mosquito nets and Malaria medicines.
The lawmakers, who took a turn to fault the SURWASH
loan, asked the ministry to furnish the committee with updates of the loans collected so far for the water projects in the Ministry.
According to the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Clifford Ordia, stated that three different loans have been approved for various water projects.
The Committee, therefore, agreed to summon the Minister of Water Resources, Adamu Suleiman, to appear before it to give an explanation on the loans and state of loans collected so far.
Speaking against the loan, Senator Obinna Ogba (PDP Ebonyi Central) said that he will be against approval for the loan because some of the loans collected so far for water projects are without result.
Sen. Sani Musa, (APC Niger), while kicking against the loan advised the Committee to look at all the requests and pick the one that is necessary.
Senator Brima Enagi also protested against the request, demanded to know the State of the Gurara project from the Ministry.
Earlier, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Water Resources, Mrs. Esther Didi Walson-Jack, who was unable to give an explanation to the previous loans approved for water projects told the Committee that SURWASH will last for five years.
She added that $640 million will be used for the Project while the $60 million will be used for capacity building.
The Permanent Secretary said that the proposal was negotiated with World Bank on April 2021 and was approved at Federal Executive Council, (FEC), on August 11, 2021.
States that will benefit from the $700 loan from World Bank are Delta, Ekiti, Gombe, Imo, Kaduna, Katsina, and Plateau with counterpart funding of $175 million.
The programme will deliver improved water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services to 2,000 schools and health care facilities and assist 500 Communities to achieve open defecation free status.
