By Daniel Tyokua
The Federal Capital Territory, 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 areas.
Executive Director, FCT RUWASSA Dr. Muhammed Dan-hassan said the training was organised to build capacity of local community artisans on borehole mechanics, maintenance and management of water scheme in rural areas.
He 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 who stated this at the closing ceremony of the workshop in Abuja, 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”
He said 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.
“During the last inventory 40% of boreholes were disfunctional, with the development we set up WASHCOM, and ask them to be maintaining it. Government doesn’t have enough fund to be doing maintenance”
Dan-Hassan disclosed that the 46 trained artisans from the Six Area Councils and FCT RUWASSA were also given set of tools, “we train 6 from each Area Council, making it 36 with 10 from RUWASSA bringing the total to 46” he said.
However, the 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.
One of the beneficeries at 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.
