The Federal Government says it plans to enforce the mandatory water test policy for drilling boreholes and other water projects.
The Minister of Water Resources, Malam Suleiman Adamu, announced this on Sunday when he appeared as a guest on the News Agency of Nigeria interview forum in Abuja.
Adamu said this policy is part of the Federal Government’s efforts to strengthen its National Reference Laboratories to solve the problems of water quality, standards, and monitoring in Nigeria.
“We are going to come up with a policy in all our water projects that when you drill boreholes, part of the condition is you must do water tests,” he said.
Adamu said periodic water tests and quality water surveillance were being carried out in adherence to the Nigerian Standard for Drinking Water Quality.
“For our projects, the water quality test should be conducted within our laboratories.”
“In that way, we keep them busy, but we also use the laboratories for surveillance because we are also in charge of water quality surveillance.
“So, regularly, we go out and test not only existing water supply schemes but also the rivers that supply the raw water,” he explained.
Adamu said that the ministry was equally giving priority to the completion of the National Reference Laboratories.
“We give priority to the completion of the laboratories. They are among the projects that we prioritise for completion, and we are working very hard to complete them.
“One of the things we are looking at is completion, and we’ll take a few that can be run directly by the government.”
