FG unveils Nigeria’s standard for drinking water

WorldStage Newsonline— As part of efforts to safe guard the quality of water supply across the country, the Federal Government on Thursday unveiled the Nigeria Standard for Drinking Water Quality (NSDWQ) to protect Nigerians from consuming contaminated water.
Speaking at the event in Abuja the Minister of Water Resources, Engr.
Suleiman Adamu said the ministry has been assigned the responsibility of enforcement.
He noted that not much had been done in respect to enforcement of standard with water producers, carrying on with business without regard for the quality.
Adamu said: “This issue precipitated the reassignment of role of stakeholders during the review of the standard in 2015 by the Technical Committee.” He said the ministry was committed to upgrading the water quality laboratories located in Lagos, Akure, kano, Minna, Enugu, Gombe, Maiduguri, Sokoto, makurdi, Umuahia, Asaba and Port Harcourt.
He identified clean water as one of the important determinant to good health adding that, about 60% of diseases in developing countries are related to unsafe water supply and inadequate sanitation.
The minister said according to World Health Organisation (WHO), “diseases related to drinking water contamination represent a major burden on human health and interventions to improve the quality of drinking water provide significant benefits to the health and well being of the people.” Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Water Resources, Dr. Musa Ibrahim said much progress has been made in providing water supply facilities in Nigeria.
Ibrahim said: “According to data from 2016 multiple indicator cluster survey 5 (MICS 5), access to improved drinking water supply sources is estimated at 64.1% in the country.
Giving the scale of the challenge, this is highly remarkable achievement.” He noted that the quality of water is highly compromised during collection, trough transport to point of use, so that for the same period the percentage access to safe drinking water is 32.1%, adding that the NSDWQ NIS-554-2015 will improve quality of water consumption.
Director General Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Mr. Osita Aboloma, represented by the Deputy Director SON, Mrs. Elisie Ofili emphasized the use of that NSDWQ by all stakeholders in the water supply sector.

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