National Water Resources Bill reintroduction unconstitutional, 36 Governors kick

• ….Say states interests not protected

By Lateef Ibrahim, Abuja

Governors of the thirty-six States of the federation have kicked against the reintroduction of the National Water Resources Bill, pointing out that the bill is inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution of Nigeria.

Rising from their 5th teleconference meeting on Tuesday, the Governors noted with regrets that the bill did not adequately address the interests of the states.

A communique issued at the end of the meeting and signed by the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, called for review of the bill “with a view to accommodating the concerns of all states”.

According to communique, “On the Reintroduction of the National Water Resources Bill, Governors argued that the Bill does not adequately address the interests of the states and is inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. 

“The Bill according to the Forum should be reviewed with a view to accommodating the concerns of all states”, it said.

The governors, according to the communique, “agreed to spearhead the six-year $500 million World Bank sponsored Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project (LPRES), which is aimed at improving the productivity, commercialisation, and resilience of targeted livestock production systems in Nigeria.”

Continuing, the communique said, “Governors unanimously decided to spearhead the programme in their states, particularly in areas such as institutional and innovation systems strengthening, livestock value-chain enhancement, crisis prevention and conflict mitigation, and project coordination”.

The NGF Chairman explained further that the meeting of the Governors reviewed the Federal Government’s “response to the fallouts of the Russia-Ukraine war (including inflation and the rising food and nutrition crises), the continued impact of the PMS subsidy on the fiscal headroom of governments, implications of NNPC’s new transition on federation revenues, as well as the widening divergence between the official and parallel market rate of the dollar on the currency.”

This, Fayemi said, followed a presentation by the Minister of Finance, Budget & National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed on the draft 2023 – 2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).

The Ekiti State Governor said it was part of the consultative process in the development of the federal government’s fiscal policy, as well as to share relevant macroeconomic and fiscal assumptions to help states prepare their Economic and Fiscal Update (EFU), FSP and Budget Policy Statement (BPS). 

He explained that the governors endorsed the State Action on Business Enabling Reforms (SABER) programme, and were committed to set up an ad-hoc committee to steer the implementation of the programme in all states of the federation.

He said, “SABER is a three-year performance-based intervention jointly designed by the World Bank technical team and the PEBEC secretariat with support from the Federal Ministry of Finance Budget and National Planning (FMFBNP), Home Finance Department (HFD) and the NGF Secretariat to incentivise and strengthen the implementation of business enabling reforms across Nigeria. SABER is technically a successor to State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability And Sustainability ( SFTAS ).

The NGF Chairman stated that the governors were committed to mobilizing their state and local government teams for their primary health care (PHC) leadership challenge.

According to him, governors would visit the PHC facilities, hold meetings with traditional leaders to discuss PHC, while the deputy governors would chair PHC task forces.

He said further, “The Seattle Declaration sets out a series of commitments for state governments including the implementation of Primary Health Care Under One Roof, a costed Minimum Service Package tailored to states, State Basic Health Care Provision Fund requirements, improved financing for PHC as per the Abuja Commitment, review of state PHC performances in state executive councils, state task force on PHC chaired by the deputy governors, and the engagement of traditional and religious leaders on PHC”.