After more than several weeks of being cut off from public water supply, residents of Calabar were on Thursday shocked to find coloured water flowing from their taps.
Calabar, the Cross River State capital, had experienced irregular supply of potable water for over one year, leaving residents to scout for water from available borehole facilities owned by individuals.
The supply is coming almost a year after same thing happened in March 2017 that lasted for some days.
Areas that got coloured water supply include Eta-Agbor, Ekpo Abasi, Mayne Avenue, Marian Road and State Housing.
Thursday’s supply of coloured water sparked controversy as residents blamed the management o f the Cross River State Water Board Limited for incompetence.
Members of the state House of Assembly had recently slammed the agency for poor performances, but the management of the board blamed its shortcoming on lack of funding.
A resident of Mayne Avenue, Mr. Emeka Ndubuisi, lamented that it would have been better to remain without water than to supply one that was likely to be injurious to consumers’ health.
“We have tried to cope with this irregular supply of water in Calabar for more than one year. It was a shock to find coloured water flowing from the taps on Thursday. It was like that for more than five hours and it showed that those managing water supply in the state are playing with people’s lives,” he said.
But the CRSWBL blamed the supply of coloured water on what it called “flushing of storage tank and pipe network”.
Managing Director of CRSWBL, Dr. Godwin Igile, gave an instant assurance that potable water would be restored on that same day.
In his statement, Igile said, “Please rest assured that management is doing everything possible to ensure restoration of regular clean, potable water before evening fall.”
As at 6.30pm on Thursday, coloured water was still being pumped to residents, while water supply stopped altogether on Friday.
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