Civil society and labour activists have demanded that the Lagos State House of Assembly should reject a recommendation in the 2017 budget proposal, which provided for Public Private Partnership, PPP, as the arrangement to improve the water sector in the state. Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, while presenting the 2017 budget proposal of N812.998 billion to the State House of Assembly, noted, “in the area of environment, we will improve water supply through PPP and increase the capacity utilization of water treatment plants….”
The coalition of civil society and labour unions on the platform of the “Our Water Our Right Campaign” have kicked against the proposal, insisting that it does not reflect the genuine yearnings of Lagos citizens who believe that only democratic control of water under the public sector will guarantee access and affordability of water in Lagos. The groups include Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, ERA/FoEN, Peace and Development Project, PEDEP, Citizen Center and the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service, Technical and Recreational Services Employees, AUPCTRE, among others.
Akinbode Oluwafemi, ERA/FoEN deputy executive director, said: “We find it strange and disturbing that despite the position of local communities, activists and unions that what Lagos really needs is public investment and democratic control of water, the spurious provision on PPP was smuggled into the budget proposal for 2017. This suggestion should be discarded by the State Assembly if the honourable lawmakers truly represent the people”
Solomon Adelegan, national president of AUPCTRE, said: “It is absurd that despite the successes of the Ambode administration in many respects, it may have been conned into buying into the PPP myth. Under a PPP regime not only will the rights of our people to a free gift of nature be violated, workers will also be shown the way out.” Adelegan insisted that PPP has failed in all the poster countries of the World Bank such as Manila, Nagpur, and even Paris, even as he added that, “keeping water in the public sector under Public-Public-Partnership (PUP) is one of the tested alternatives. We want the PPP proposal totally removed from the budget proposal”
The group further pointed out that comprehensive alternative arrangements to the PPP have been clearly enumerated in the book: “LAGOS WATER CRISIS: Alternative Roadmap for Water Sector” publicly presented in the state recently.