By Stanley Onyekwere
The FCT, Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), in conjunction with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have trained 46 artisans on borehole maintenance and repairs in rural communities in the Territory.
Our correspondent reports that the capacity building workshop organised to train local community artisans, mainly to boost management of rural water supply scheme.
Executive Director, FCT RUWASSA, Dr. Muhammed Dan-Hassan, explained that with the knowledge acquired from the workshop the artisans will be able to carry out maintenance on the borehole in their local communities.
Dan-Hassan said the training will help the artisans know about supply chain of spare parts, and how to get them if they are needed.
“Rural Water supply schemes are handed over to the communities to own and manage it, so we come up with village level operation and maintenance to train community artisans, but they must be people in the community so that they would not go outside to look for the mechanics.
“Again, the target is to improve access to safe drinking water in all the FCT rural communities.The training involve theory and practical aspect, during the training four borehole were repaired by the artisans”
He disclosed that the last inventory that was taken in 2012 showed that maintenance of some boreholes have been taken over by the communities where they are allocated.
Dan-Hassan added that 36 of the 46 trained artisans were from the six Area Councils, while 10 are of the FCT RUWASSA, and all of them were given set of tools.
A representative of JICA, Nigeria office, Sato Shohei said the agency would continue to support any move to improve access to drinking water in Abuja rural communities, saying that with the training, participants can now fix broken down boreholes in their communities.
On his part, one of the beneficeries from Karu, in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Giwa Bamaiyi commended RUWASSA and JICA for the training, saying the knowledge will be used in helping his community have steady water supply.
