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By Ahmed Ali, Kafanchan
The Kaduna State Government has tasked communities on the need for behavioural change to ensure the sustainability of its and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (SURWASH) program.
SURWASH is a World Bank approved $700m program being implemented in six states of the country including Kaduna.
SURWASH will provide 6.1million people with basic drinking services and 1.4million people access to improved sanitation services.
The program will also deliver improved water sanitation and hygiene services to 2000 schools and healthcare facilities and assist 500 communities achieve open defecation free status.
Engr. Esau Ambinjah, Kaduna SURWASH program coordinator, made the lamentation during advocacy visits to Jema’a and Jaba Local Government Areas.
Ambinjah said it was disheartening that some of the SURWASH infrastructure built in in the first phase of the program had been either vandalised or neglected by the benefitting communities.
Represented by Auwal Muhammad, the program’s procurement officer, he explained that communities needed to treat SURWASH facilities as community properties, not government properties.
“Understand that once we build a facility in your community, it not longer belongs to the government but the community.
“The community has a duty to own it, protect it and maintain that infrastructure. If you don’t take care of it, no one will,” he stated.
“When you go round, you will find that some communities have abandoned their boreholes just because of a problem that N5000 can fix.
“We are trying to see how we can change that way of thinking for communities and the best people to do it is the local government,” he added.
In their separate remarks in their offices, Peter Tanko and Larai Ishaku, Jema’a and Jaba council chairmen respectively, lauded the Kaduna SURWASH program for selecting their LGAs among the six pilot LGAs for the program in Kaduna.
They pledged their councils’ readiness to engage and educate communities on the need to take ownership and stewardship of SURWASH services.
The six pilot LGAs for the Kaduna SURWASH program include Soba, Chikun, Igabi, Sabon Gari, Jaba and Jema’a.
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