Governor Sheriff Oborevwori’s administration in Delta State will continue to do more for the people of the state towards creating a conducive living environment for the people, in a bid to enhance healthy living and economic growth.
General Manager, Delta State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), Mr Clement Adiotomre, stated this during an advocacy sensitization and engagement meetings organized by the agency under World Bank’s Sustainable Urban Rural Water Sanitation and Hygiene (SURWASH), with stakeholders in 18 communities across Ndokwa West, Okpe and Ughelli North local government areas of the state.
Adiotomre said the governor was committed to making life better for Delta people and had begun several processes towards achieving a better environment for the people through partnership with local and international interventionist organizations towards attaining a healthy environment in the state.
He said the SURWASH programme, through RUWASSA, is already engaging the communities through the provision of water projects, sanitation programmes and the open defecation-free processes.
He said that various interventionist programmes in the area of open defecation will soon see Delta State being recognized by the Federal Task Group on Sanitation (FTGS) as one of the few states in Nigeria to have successfully become an open defecation-free state in Nigeria.
Adiotomre enjoined the various communities to continue to support Oborevwori in his determination to make the state the leading state in the provision of quality environment enhanced by cleanliness and viability for businesses.
He also called on them to see government projects in their communities as belonging to the communities, by providing adequate security for such facilities, saying such an act would encourage government to do more for the people, while warning those who engage in vandalising government projects in communities to desist.
He said the visit was to get first-hand information of the state of the facilities and ways to further enhance them as well as institute more in the communities, stressing that RUWASSA, in partnership with SURWASH, had instituted different programmes like Grievance Redress Committee, Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and Water Sanitation and Hygiene committees (WASHCOM) towards attending to the plight of the people through making sure that the projects sited in the communities are sustainable.
The RUWASSA General Manager said that the Oborevwori administration was keen on increasing the government’s presence in the communities and had strengthened its partnership with the World Bank and other interventionist agencies towards achieving a better society in the state.
The members of the various communities visited, thanked the state government as well as SURWASH for their stride in trying to make life better for the rural dwellers and assured that they would continue to safeguard such facilities in their communities.
They, however, enjoined the government and its partners to act in swift manner towards attending the plight of the people through the provision of more of such facilities like water projects, toilet facilities among others.
Some of the communities include Elume in Okpe Local Government; Ogume in Ndokwa West and Agadama in Ughelli North.
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