Evaluating Service Delivery Performance of Water Utilities in Kaduna State Water Board, Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
This study assesses the operational management and efficiency of water supply schemes in Kaduna State using a performance indicator called “Service Standard Performance Metrics (SPEM)”and SWOT analysis. The three water treatment plants in Kaduna metropolis were visited.
Detailed evaluations were carried out for the schemes using some aspects of technical, financial, human resources and institutional performance indicators. The benchmarking approach was used for the evaluation of the service delivery performance and the results obtained for the performance were compared with other developed countries.
The results clearly show that unaccounted for water, billing efficiency and cash operating ratio are still the major problem of these schemes. Averagely, the service coverage for the entire state is 27%, which is very low and the average service coverage for the Kaduna metropolis is 71%.
The average unaccounted for water for the entire state is 47% and 52% for the three schemes in the Kaduna metropolis. This indicates that more than 40% of the water treated is being lost either through illegal connection or through pipe burst.
The duration of supply is less than 24hrs. The cost recovery for the metropolis is 22% at N21/m3 as against production cost of N93.50/m3. Involvement of the private sector participation was suggested in the study for effective performance of the service delivery.
INTRODUCTION
Water utilities are implemented to construct, operate and maintain water supply systems. In the past the basic function of these water utilities was to obtain water from a source, treat it to an acceptable quality, and deliver the desired quantity at the desired time.
Over the years in most developing nations, the situational analysis of the water provided by most of the Government Owned Water Utilities (GOWU) has been seriously characterized with poor water quality, incessant intermittent flow to non availability.
The steps to evaluate the performance of these utilities have been well spelt out by some international organization such as American Water Works Association (Kayaga, et al., 2006). In most developing Nations, water utilities are generally developed for urban water supply.
Presently, most of these public water utilities are faced with enormous challenges in meeting the water needs of their growing populations (Kayaga, et al., 2006). Many of the challenges are as a result of poor utility management practices, lack of a commercial oriented culture to drive performance improvements (WUP, 2006a).
A number of options have been tried in an attempt to address these problems. The most notable one is private sector participation – which has included contracting multinational water companies to run water utilities (World Bank, 2003).
The developed countries considered privatization as the most viable option (Lam and Chan, 1998), but in Nigeria and other African countries, private sector participation had a limited success due to government interference. There is growing pessimism about the scale of performance improvement to be expected from private sector involvement (Budds and McGranaham, 2003).
REFERENCES
Abdullahi, A., (2009). Evaluating Water Pricing and Capacity Expansion in Kaduna State Water Works. Unpublished Final Year Project, Department of Water Resources, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
Abdullahi, U., (2008). Evaluation of Service delivery of Water Schemes in Kaduna State. Unpublished M.Sc Thesis, Department of Water Resources, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
Adeyemi, M., (2002). Evaluation of Oro Water Treatment Plant of Kwara State.Unpublished Final Year Project, Department of Water Resources, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
Adoga, O. (2006). Nigerian Water Policy and Law: A Need for Global Compliance.http://www.martindale.com/natural-resources-law/article- 240640.html
African Water Utilities Partnership (AWUP) (2000). Performance Indicators of some African Water Supply and Sanitation Utilities. Water Utilities Partnership (WUP) International.
Alegre, H., Hirner, W., Baptista, J.M. and Parena, R. (2000). Performance Indicators For Water Supply Services. Operations & Maintenance Specialist Group, International Water Association.
StudentsandScholarship Team.
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