The Ministry of Water Resources has been questioned by the House of Representatives Public Account Committee about its N4 billion expenditure on hiring 100 employees for a three-month period. The funds were allegedly intended for a Youth Engagement for Sanitation (YES) project spanning all 774 local government districts in the nation.
The committee’s chairman, Representative Bamidele Salam, posed the question as part of an investigation into the government’s Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) over possible misappropriation of COVID-19 intervention funds between 2020 and 2022.
In addition, he questioned the Ministry, calling it unacceptable that they were allegedly drilling a borehole costing between N25 million and N12.5 million for each unit.
Mrs. Didi Walson-Jack, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, informed the Committee that boreholes have been sunk in a few places throughout the Federation’s states and the Federal Capital Territory.
According to him, “299 new water schemes were started during the period, and 188 old and abandoned solar boreholes were revived during that same period.” He stated that 10 million naira worth of intervention goods were given to each state in the nation.
The committee members also wanted to know how the teenagers were recruited, who all the youths were, what their account numbers were, and when the payments were supposed to be made to the banks.
“In order to ensure that we get value for our money, the Committee must visit the area and ascertain the precise situation.”
He declared that Osun and Ogun in the South West, Akwa Ibom and Edo in the South, and Imo and Ebonyi in the South East would be among the states to be visited for the physical verification.
The North Central states of Kwara, Nasarawa, and Benue; the North West states of Katsina and Sokoto; and the North East states of Bauchi and Adamawa are among the others.
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