Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
The Taraba State House of Assembly has assured that the House Committee on water and other relevant committees were working hard to make sure that the Taraba WASH Bill will be passed into law by December 2019.
The Chairman of the Committee, Alh. Mohammed Abdulkarim, gave the assurance while receiving delegates from leading Non-Governmental Organisation on social accountability in Africa, Connected Development [CODE], led by its team Lead on the USAID E-WASH project, Ijeoma Oforka.
Abdulkarim, who acknowledged that the bill has been delayed for some time, added that “we could not meet the initial deadline of October that we set due to some constraints but we have gone very far now. As a matter of urgency, we will accelerate the second reading, public hearing, and third reading and present it to Governor Darius Ishaku for assent before the end of December 2019.”
Meanwhile, the Taraba state governor Darius Ishaku has assured that he will assent to the bill as soon as it is passed into law by the House of Assembly.
The Secretary to the Taraba State Government Mr Anthony Jellason who received the team of grantees for the USAID funded WASH program in the state on behalf of the governor said that “lack of clean water has contributed to poor sanitation and exposed the people particularly children to diarrhoea and other waterborne diseases”.
Jellason who said that the passage of the bill into law will reposition the state’s water and sanitation agency for more effective and efficient service delivery assured that the state government is already waiting patiently for the House to pass the Bill into law and will not delay in assenting to is once passed.
The Bill, when passed into law, is expected to ensure that over sixty Thousand Households in some selected local government areas across the state have stable access to portable water supply and sanitation in the next three years while plans are ongoing for the expansion of the program to cover the entire state.
Connected Development [CODE] is a non-governmental organization, whose mission is to improve access to information and empower local communities in Africa. Its initiative, Follow The Money, advocates and tracks government/international aid spending in health, WASH, and education across grassroots and communities to promote and ensure open government and service delivery.
Sunday Sun report that Connected Development, is collaborating with community-based organisations, Media Organizations, the WASH Customer Forums and other WASH groups in Taraba State to support civic advocacy, and strengthening policy, institutional, and regulatory frameworks for improved WASH services in the state.