By Ahmed Idris
The federal government said on Wednesday that the latest flood data has indicated that the worst flood is over as the water level at Lokoja and Lagdo Dam in Cameroun have dropped significantly.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, while briefing State House correspondents on the outcome of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja.
The minister said the water level at Lokoja has dropped by six centimetres while that of Lagdo Dam has continued to go down.
“I was able to brief Council on the latest flood data. I was happy to report to council that as of Saturday the water level at Lokoja had dropped by 6 centimetres and is still going down. The water level in Lagdo Dam in Cameroun is also going down.
“So, hopefully, the worst is over except if there is an unforeseen and unprecedented amount of rainfall, which is very unlikely but not also unlikely to happen, we don’t hope it will. I think that the worst is over and we should be able to see most of the flood water receding from now,’’ he said.
The minister told journalists that the council approved N612 million as revised estimated cost for the completion of Cham Dam and development of 100 hectares of irrigation scheme in Balanga local government area of Gombe state.
He said the project was initially awarded in 2011 at the cost of N832 million, saying the augmentation had now brought the total cost of the project to N1.44 billion.
“Council today approved the revised estimated total cost for the complete rehabilitation of Cham Dam and development of 100 hectares of irrigation in Balanga local government of Gombe state.
“As part of our process to complete projects that we inherited we brought this project which was started in 2011 but had suffered paucity of fund. Works had stopped around 65 per cent. We now need to complete it and we had to re-negotiate with the contractors. Therefore, we brought request for augmentation of N612nmillion for that project,” he said.
He said the project is being executed by the Upper Benue River Basin Development Authority.
“The Dam was originally constructed in 1982 but after some unprecedented rainfall and probably due to inadequate provision of spill ways the dam was breached about 10 years ago and therefore, it has to be reconstructed and this is why we came for this augmentation of N612 million. It will now bring the contract sum to N1.44 billion. The original contract sum was N832 million in 2011, that’s about 11 years ago.’’
