Six civil society groups have sent a petition to the Lagos State House of Assembly, urging it to halt the privatisation plans being implemented by the Lagos Water Corporation (LWC).

The CSOs behind the petition are the Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI), Citizens Free Service Forum (CFSF), the Environmental Defenders Network (EDEN), Child Health Organisation, New Life Community Care Initiative (NELCCI) and the Ecumenical Water Network Africa/Blue Communities Africa (EWNA/BCA)

The LWC had organised a Stakeholders’ Engagement on the Pilot Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for LWC on August 15, at the Protea Hotel, Ikeja, with support from WaterAid.

The engagement was to secure private financing for infrastructural development and public buy-in for the privatisation initiative.

But the groups, in a petition to the House of Assembly, made available to the media, said that the event was only portrayed as public participation in decision-making when, in actual fact, it aimed to ram the PPP down the throats of Lagosians.

They said that the organisers of the event disregarded the rejection of privatisation, including the PPP, by Lagos residents, pretending as if the initiative enjoyed support.

They explained that their concern is further heightened by comments credited to the Chairman of the Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Information, Hon. Steven Ogundipe, who promised swift legislative backing for the PPP initiative when he was making his remarks at the event.

They insisted that public sector funding can turn around the fortunes of the corporation and its service delivery if all the money voted for making water available is used for the purpose.

However frowned at the fact that the funds allocated to the corporation since 1999 have not been adequately monitored and called for a probe into all the water contracts, identification and blacklisting of identified contractors who are found wanting and recovery of all monies diverted.

In their prayers, they called for a halt to the ongoing privatisation plans by the LWC, termination of all partnerships and collaborations that aim to foist water privatisation on Lagos, including the arrangements with WaterAid, and an increase in budgetary allocation to the water sector, plus pinpoint oversight on how the monies are spent.

For effective management of the water utilities, they urged the state government to carry out a comprehensive study on the successes of the Public-Private-Partnership (PuP) model, which has worked in many countries and its suitability for adoption in Lagos State.

Pointing to the privatisation failure in the UK which the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and other donors had always peddled as a success story, they noted that investors in England and Wales’ water sector (largely driven by profits) withdrew over £85.2 billion from the 10 water and sewerage firms since the industry was privatised more than 30 years ago.

“This information, which shows distrust and disinvestment in the privatisation exercise, came to light in a 2024 report by the Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) of the University of Greenwich.

Blaming lack of access to water in Lagos on failure in legislative oversight, the groups urged the House to investigate budgetary allocations to the water sector since 1999, listing some allocations that should be probed to include the Otta-Ikosi waterworks awarded for N4 billion in 2007 and the N3 billion expended on construction of an Independent Power Plant (IPP) which also included an additional N180 million expended monthly on fueling.
Others are the N897 million released by the state government for the rehabilitation of Iju and Adiyan Waterworks; N789 million released by the government for the rehabilitation of mini and micro waterworks across Lagos, and N2.7 billion voted by the government and expended on the rehabilitation of Ishasi waterworks supervised by the governor.

They also cited the N950 million budgeted for the purchase of chemicals for the year 2023; N315 million paid as a 50 per cent advanced payment to the contractor for the supply of liquid alum in October 2023; N1.2 billion budgeted for chemicals in 2024; and N9.5 million for the repair of the chemical store gate at Iju and Adiyan