FCT Fails To Repair Damaged Pipes As Kado Estate Residents Spend N70,000 Weekly On Water

Residents of Kado estates and the Kado-Kuchi community in Abuja have been suffering water shortage since June after a major pipeline that supplies water to the area was damaged.

Bode Adejumo, a facility manager at Lakeview Homes Estate told THE WHISTLER that despite multiple appeals to the Federal Capital Territory Water Board (FCTWB) and the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), the pipeline remains unfixed, forcing residents to spend thousands of naira on water tankers.

Adejumo, who shared the ordeal residents have faced for over three months said, “If you are familiar with Kado Estate, the areas affected are Next Cash and Carry, NAF Conference Center, Custom Quarters, Navy Quarters, Lakeview Homes Phase II, Laton Ground, down to the Mobile side, and Kado-Kuchi community.”

According to Adejumo, the affected communities were previously supplied water by the FCT Water Board, with residents regularly paying substantial amounts as water bills.

He also stated that efforts to resolve the issue involved several visits to the FCT Water Board and the FCDA.

However, both authorities have claimed that the repair is beyond their control due to the engineering complexities involved.

He said, “We have FCT water board that supplies the area water and we paid our bills. They bring bills every month to different estates.

“In my estate, sometimes we pay up to N2m or N1m in a month. I don’t know what other people pay.
Now, the pipe that supplies us water all through, a very big pipe happens to break down since June.

“Up to date, it has not been fixed. We have spoken to them from the District Water Board office, and they referred us to the headquarters in area 3, we went there and they said is beyond their power and is FCDA that is going to do it because of the engineering complexity that is involved.

“We went to FCDA, and we were told that the repair had been approved, and they would move to the site. Those are the stories we’ve been hearing. At a point, FCDA officials told us to fix it ourselves as a community service.

“We question them how we are supposed to do it as a community, you stopped people from drilling boreholes in Abuja, you said is against the AEPB law.

“The only water board source that we were given in FCT, they collect the tenament rate and ground rent from citizens and they cannot fix a broken pipe that supplies water to this neighborhood.

“Despite the fact that they are losing revenue, as of today they haven’t come to fix it. Before then, for like two weeks, the water was wasting before an official of the waterboard came and blocked it.”

Adejumo stated that the cost of buying water from water board trucks has placed a significant financial strain on residents.

He further said, “Now, we have been buying water from the same waterboard with their trucks. We said it seemed like the owners of these waterboard trucks are also FCT officials and they are using us to make money from their end because each truck is sold between N35,000 and N38,000.

“In my estate alone, we have like 148 residential houses, so each house buy water because we can’t take it from service charge. If you have two tanks, it can fill up and in the next 3 to 4 days, the water is finished.

“When you estimate the cost of each house buying water twice per week, you can imagine how many thousands of naira that we spend.

“Those that have the small 1000 liter, buy for N10,000 and that one can’t take them more than two days. What kind of suffering is that?”

The facility Manager of Lakeview Homes stated that the situation has worsened, with house helps being forced to roam the area with gallons and buckets in search of water.

Residents who cannot afford the expensive tankers are left without any reliable source of water, despite being billed for services they no longer receive.

He noted that “Recently the FCT tenament rate has been coming to terrorise us in the estate, serving notices that is what they generate they use in fixing roads and water. Asking us to pay for the water we never used.

“These are our predicament, and we have tried our possible best to see if it can be fixed. At a time, we decided to fix it ourselves. They told us that something like this happened in Karu and it took them up to eight months to fix it.

“So we suspect that if the community decides to fix it, and the government releases money for it, they might share it among themselves, and resume collecting bills from us.”