Huge debt of over N1.2 billion from consumers owed Cross River Water Board Limited has crippled supply of water in the state.

Managing Director, Cross River Water Board, Mr. Victor Ekpo, who disclosed this in an interview with newsmen in Calabar, yesterday, said debts were really hampering operations of the board towards actualizing “my target is to raise the revenue of the board to the level where it will start paying the N29 million of the staff monthly wage bill”.

He stated that the debt, which covered the period between January 2020 and March 2021, had made it impossible to replace broken pipes, fix generators and buy chemicals for water treatment.

He regretted that prominent citizens of the state, particularly politicians, make up the majority of those indebted to the board.

Ekpo said: “Averagely, the water we send out in a month is worth over N120 million and we sell our water at N150 per cubic metre and some times we get about N10 million as revenue per month and this makes it difficult for the board to survive.”

He said the way to recover the huge debt would be the option of publishing their names to compel debtors to pay so that water board could render effective services and pay its staff, which the state is currently supporting.

Ekpo, however, said the permanent solution is outright privatisation of the board as the revenue profile plummeted from about N50 million in 2007 to less than N1 million at the time he took over in January 2020.

He said: “My first discovery here is the corruption in the board. Some of the staff turned the place to moneymaking ventures for themselves.

“While some of them divert revenue to their personal account, others were vandalising key components of the board generating sets and stealing pipes in some stations outside Calabar. In fact, many of the staff attitude to work is not something that will enhance efficiency and effectiveness of the board to service delivery.

“Or how do you explain the situation where an employee procure her own PoS and started collecting and channeling revenue of the board to her personal account”.

While noting that privatisation remains the best option for the Cross River water board, Ekpo said strategy had been put in place to ensure better service delivery to the people and “we are surely going to come out stronger in the next few weeks.”