FCTA RESTATES COMMITMENT TO ERADICATE OPEN DEFECATION BY 2025 IN FCT
…SETS UP TEAM TO VERIFY & CERTIFY KWALI COMMUNITIES AS OPEN DEFECATION FREE
BY: Darlington Omotosho
The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), has set machinery in place for the actualization of eradicating Open Defecation in the Territory by the year 2025.
This is just as the Administration has constituted a team to certify the already verified communities in Kwali Area Council as Open Defecation Free ( ODF).
Executive Director, FCT Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWSSA), Dr. Mohammed Ali-Dan Hassan, who stated this during a capacity-building workshop organized for the 15-member FCT State Task Group on Sanitation (STGS), recently in Abuja, charged members of the group to be committed and proactive towards achieving the Administration’s goals.
The training was jointly organized by the United Nations Education Fund (UNICEF), and the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to train members of the group on ways of effectively and efficiently handling their responsibilities.
Ali Dan-Hassan who urged members of the recently constituted team to be diligent and discharge their responsibilities with the highest sense of professionalism, said their assignment is critical towards achieving the FCTA’s objectives of attaining ODF, in the FCT, even before the 2025 deadline.
He said the training became necessary in order to Properly equip members of the STGS, saddled with the responsibility of certifying verified communities in Kwali Area Council.
His words: “As you proceed to the field, this is an important task that is not an end itself but a means to an end. We have targets to achieve, and this is one of the processes to achieve those targets. There are key performance indicators that will be used to measure the progress that we have achieved. I, therefore, encourage you to remain committed”.
Also speaking at the event, the Coordinator, Clean Nigeria, Use the Toilet Campaign office, Chizoma Opara said the aim of the workshop is to explain the functions of the STGS to the members.
She revealed that the National Task Group on sanitation, which has been in existence since 2002 is the mother of the STGS.
In her remarks, Ms. Jane Bevan, chief water and sanitation hygiene, WASH, a section of UNICEF Nigeria, represented by Abioye Ogunjobi at the occasion said, all the functions of the STGS are built around community-led total sanitation CLTS.
He explained that sustainable sanitation encompasses the use of improved toilets, and a total absence of open defecation, faecal sludge management
Participants at the workshop were drawn from relevant agencies of the FCT Administration, civil society organizations as well as the media.
