Ndume commends FG over move to rebuild Biu Dam project

By Musa Adamu

Former Senate Majority Leader, Ali Ndume has commended the Federal Government’s effort to commence work on over 38 year old abandoned Biu Dam project in Borno State.
The lawmaker, who spoke to newsmen in Abuja, said he got the assurance when he paid a courtesy call on the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu.
He said the minister assured that work would commence for continuation of the dam project in 2020, adding that it was already captured in the 2020 national budget.
The former majority leader said that the move by the federal government would help solve the problem of water scarcity faced by residents in the area and adjourning communities.
He said although the state government had paid its counterpart fund for the completion of the dam, the federal government over the years failed to meet up its part of the funding for continuation of the project.
“It is cheering to hear that the Biu Dam, a project that was awarded over 38 years ago but abandoned over the years, has been captured in the 2020 budget of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources.
The first phase of the project was awarded to LeeFakino and re-awarded to Nalando Company recently but no work is going on there.
“With this assurance from the minister, when completed, the dam will service residents who have over the years suffered immensely for lack of water.
“Biu, an agrarian community and other neighbouring communities have been subjected to untold hardship due to the continued abandonment of the dam project in spite of the huge socio-economic opportunities it will provide.
“The dam when completed will not only help in tackling perennial water shortage in the area but provide water for irrigation for the people, whose major occupation is farming,” he said.
It can be recalled that, Sen. Ali Ndume (APC Borno South), had appealed to the federal government to complete the abandoned Biu Dam project, awarded over 38 years ago, to address water scarcity in the area.
Ndume had said that the lack of access to water in the area had affected over 200,000 people thereby crippling socio-economic activities.