OSUN State Governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, on Monday, flagged off a  water project, worth N48.73 billion, in his country home of Ilesa, saying it would be the biggest singular water project since the creation of Osun state in 1991.

Speaking during the programme to kickstart the construction of Transmission Mains and Booster Pumping Station and construction of three NOS. 10,000M3 concrete reservoirs, Aregbesola hinted that the federal government had expended N8.7billion on the dam project at Kajola, just as he said that Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has also given the state a sum of N23billion.

The governor said the state would need N15.31billion to complete the project, with a view to ensure that people have access to 60million cubic litres water per day.

While maintaining that the contractor had promised to complete the project in 24 months, hence, Aregbesola expressed optimism that the project would be ready by December 2017.

According to him, “We have spent N57million for compensation. It remains only one person which is CAC prayer mountain and the monarch will give him N3.424million on our behalf. Three pumps will be located at the booster station at Iloba. Each reservoir has the capacity for 10million litres, hence we will have 30million cubic litres per day in the reservoirs. 

“It remains distribution network which is the last part of it that we are yet to get money for. We are going to make it public for people to bid. Whoever wants to channel water to people and sell would be allowed to run pipes. We have written the World Bank, the federal government and Islamic Development Bank for loans.”

The consultant for the water project, Engineer Tawa Williams, said the provision of good water was part of six integral action plan of Aregbesola, assuring that the physical aspect of the project would be completed in 2019 and “it is going to be run by a consultant for five years. It is not a dividend of democracy. It is not going to be free.