By; Mohammed Kawu, Bauchi
Bauchi State Government has said that it would be spending the sum of N400 million in a month for the purchase of diesel should the power outage now ravaging the entire Northern states persist.
The Chairman of the State Urban Water & Sewage Corporation, Yayanuwa Zaimabari said that his board has already started purchasing the diesel at between N1, 200 and N1, 400 per litre.
He said, “Even at N1, 200, we are talking of about 40 million of litres per truck, and for us to go full production, we are talking of a truck in three days, which means we would require ten truck in a month”.
Zaimabari said, “So if we day 40 million per truck, we talking of N400 million which is quite exorbitant, so we pray power will be restore as quickly as possible so that we will be able to provide adequate water to Bauchi metropolis and all the good people of Bauchi state”.
He explained that the water board defied the power outage to supply pipeborne water to the teeming populace of Bauchi metropolis taking into cognisance the importance of drinking clean water, querying “Nobody could estimate the number of people who died in the past ten days in those power outage states as a result of drinking conterminated wells water”.
It is for this reason, Zainabari said,
that the Bauchi state government devised an alternative way of pipeborne water provision to the people through the use of diesel to it’s power generating plants, emphasizing that 70 percent of human body is made up of water.
Alh. Yayanuwa Zaimabari explained that the state government directed the board to supply water to the people at least on skeleton basis, adding, “And hopefully, we were able to supply water to all the nooks and crannies of Bauchi metropolis”.
He added, “As a way of backup, we also have our water tankers that we were able to deploy them to fetch water from Gubi dam for distribution to hard reach areas of Bauchi metropolis. This exercise will until the state get power from the national grid”.
“Zainabari concluded, “So we pray power will be restored to Bauchi state as quickly as possible so that we will be able to provide adequate water to Bauchi metropolis and all the good people of Bauchi state”.