By Stanley Onyekwere
To ensure improved potable water supply to Abuja residents, the Federal Capital Territory Water Board has revealed accelerated plans to meter all property using FCT water, at the end of its continuous enumeration exercise, aimed at collating a comprehensive data base by 2022.
Also, in a bid to improve efficiency in its revenue generation and water supply profile, the Board said by 2022, it will commence online billing for customers.
Making this disclosure, the Acting General Manager, FCT Water Board, Dame Joy Okoro, further revealed that the Board was targeting to generate about 450 million naira monthly in the coming year.
Okoro, who spoke at an end of year media briefing, explained as it stands, the Board has only 54,000 customers in its database, which required updating the database, in order to capture those left out, for efficiency purposes.
She said : “We have even gone further because we have a database that was created 25 years ago. You would appreciate the fact that some of the data (houses), are no more in existence or the house owners are no more there.
“We have taken cognisance of that. So we will start the enumeration from next year. We want to enumerate all our customers from next year to be able to get accurate database.
“Presently, we have 54,000 customers on our database. Within that 54,000, some of those properties are no more in place. So we want to do enumeration which we have started.”
According to her, in 2021, the board recorded unprecedented improvement in areas such as; improved revenue, increased transaction volume reservoir and production department reservoir.
She added that prior to her appointment last year October, the Board’s monthly revenue generation which was a little over 100 million Naira now generates over 200 million Naira.
“The revenue performance of the Board had improved significantly with the months of March 2021, July 2021, September & October 2021 recording unprecedented, improved percentages of 41%, 19.49%, 66% and 23% respectively.
“Notably, prior to my appointment, the best performance was March 2020 with a performance of N122,729,926.75 from 7395 transactions.
“ The months of March, July, September and October 2021 have not just recorded higher figures but also higher transaction volumes, a direct consequence of my philosophy of encouraging Customers to pay water bills”, she stressed.
Commenting on measures to expand the reach of potable water to rural communities of Abuja, Dame Okoro assured that efforts were underway to extend water supply to all the satellite towns.
The Acting General Manager who further noted that people in Abaji Area Council are enjoying free water from the water Board, said the Board would carry out enumeration of all property in the area in 2022.
“As you rightly know that we already have an act which was approved and assented since 2017.
“It has not been easy to implement absolutely. By having that act, we are supposed to be autonomous and to be autonomous, we have to be both financially and otherwise.
“It has not been possible. Why? Because we have not be able to reach our target to be able to have everything within us but we are working towards that and I believe by next year, the autonomy will be achieved,” the FCT Water Board boss stated.
