Why water reform programmes are not succeeding in Nigeria- Dennis Mwanza

Dr Dennis Mwanza, a Zambian is a household name in Nigeria’s water and sanitation sector, particularly in management of urban water reforms. He will perhaps be most remembered as the helmsman of two urban water reform programmes implemented in eight states in Nigeria, in recent years. These are:

• Chief of Party between 2018 and 2019, under the five year USAID funded E-WASH program implemented across five states (Abia, Delta, Imo, Niger, and Taraba).
• Chief of Party, SUWASA (Sustainable Water and Sanitation in Africa)implemented in Bauchi, Rivers, and Ebonyi states between 2013-2015.

He has also worked as:

• Senior WASH Advisor, RTI International, 2020- 2021
• Deputy Director, Urban Sanitation Markets, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2016 – 2018
• Senior Water and Sanitation Specialist, World Bank, Nairobi, 2006 – 2010
• Managing Director, Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company, 2005 -2006
• Presently he is the Chief of Party , DT Global, South Sudan.

In this interview with eWASH’s Dr Babatope Babalobi, he identifies governance crisis, as the greatest barriers to water reforms in Nigeria. This is due to a lack of commitment by State Governors to implement water reform programmes  as designed. 

Welcome Dr Dennis Mwanza to this interview session.

I want to thank you for this opportunity to share some thoughts, knowledge, and experience I have in the WASH sector in and outside Nigeria. Thank you so much for recognising my contribution to the water reforms. I have spent almost half of my life in the WASH sector. I started my career in Zambia’s rural water supply and sanitation, then moved on to urban water, designed and implemented sector reforms that led to the commercialisation of urban water services in Zambia, creation, and establishment of the first economic regulator for water services in Africa, and managed a utility. My experience specific to the water sector was in two forms in Zambia. First was the actual water sector reform, where we commercialised urban water supply and sanitation and established a regulator known as National Water and Sanitation Council in Zambia. I then had another opportunity to manage Lusaka Water and Sewerage company (largest water utility in Zambia.

Now, I am back to dealing with rural water supply and sanitation issues in, South Sudan through managing a USAID funded Afia WASH project.  This doesn’t mean that I have forgotten about urban water; urban issues are still part of my work.

Your career started in the rural sector. One of Nigeria’s challenges is that almost 45m Nigerians defecate in the open. One of the approaches adopted to ensure universal sanitation coverage is the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach. From the last count, only about a 100 out of 774 local governments in Nigeria have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF). Did you think there are other models for rural sanitation beyond CLTS that we could be used to increase sanitation coverage in rural areas?

CLTS stands for Community Led Total Sanitation, meaning putting the community at the heart of the whole thing and then convincing by facilitating the community to understand why they should not be going to the bush and using the toilet. CLTS, as we know, is one tool we should use to trigger change. It is a socio-behaviour change tool.

So far, it has been seen to work in several countries, in Asia and Africa. The person accredited to have started the CLTS is from India, and CLTS has been successful there. So, it has been successful in some countries, but some countries have used CLTS as one tool in addition to other tools. An example of these countries is Zambia, in some communities have come to say, if you build a house, you must make sure you build a toilet.

Some of the areas have come up with local bye laws where every household is forced to have a toilet. So, using CLTS, social behaviour changes, and the person realises I need to have a toilet. Then a bye law comes and said if you live in this village, we insist you have a toilet, will be coming to check, and you must make sure you have a toilet. If you don’t have a toilet, you will be punished. So, the combination of both tools can help. Whatever the case the bottom line is behaviour change.

Are you therefore supporting the enforcement of sanitation laws to increase sanitation coverage?

If it is enforcement on its own, I will say No. Right now, I am in South Sudan, where more than 67% are practising open defecation, and we have realised that is not as if these people do not have the resources to build a toilet. Even if we had the resources to build a toilet for each family, they will not use it, and we will not have achieved our objective. So, if it is enforcement without socio behaviour changes issues, which is CLTS, then I will not agree. Firstly, you must change the mindset of the people. When you look at these communities, diarrhoea is a common disease for them. When you have sanitation improvement, suddenly, diarrhoea disease goes down, which is what we need.

So, answering your question, I would rather do a socio-behaviour change and enforcement. That is correct. Socio-behaviour change people must be convinced that we must be using a toilet, then build the toilet.

Apart from CLTS as an approach, is there any other model that could be used?

As mentioned before, CLTS is a social behaviour change tool on sanitation. There is one approach that is being piloted in South Sudan. It is known as re-imaging CLTS where you approach the community with a message of pride. That for you be proud you must build a model household of which one such is a toilet.

For the urban areas, CLTS is not the most suitable approach. The challenge in the urban areas is not so much open defecation but the quality of the toilets. Looking at it from two different angles, I worked for the Belinda and Gates Foundation as Deputy Director in the WASH Department and our focus was on non-sewered urban sanitation.

By nature, people are forced to use the toilet because of the density in the urban areas. Therefore, in urban areas, open defecation is much lower. Because you can’t find a place to hide and do your thing. In urban areas the issue is about having the right quality of toilet.

Should Nigerian urban water utilities combine sewerage functions with their existing responsibilities? From your experiences, do you think this represents a best practice?

I think the question is, which is better? Right now, the issue of urban sanitation has not been addressed in most states, even in the state capital. It has been left to the private sector, which does it without being regulated in terms of pricing, quality, etc. You find that the vacuum tankers (once they empty septic tanks from the households) go and decant or empty in the open field and/or water bodies polluting the environments.

I will call this illegal. There is nobody you can hold accountable for poor sanitation in most states as there is usually no clear home for sanitation at the state level starting with the Ministry to the local government administration.

When we came in with our programme under the USAID funded Effective WASH programme that I managed in Nigeria, the idea was which is the most appropriate institution to deal with this. Firstly, at the state government level, there was a need to ensure a proper policy addressing water and sanitation in urban areas. When we talk about responsibility, especially in terms of utility, we need to separate three things:

• One is containment, which is the actual responsibility of building a toilet, septic tank and so on. This responsibility falls on the developer or owner of the house.
• Two, who is emptying the septic tank when it is full and transporting it and there.
• Three, is treatment of the sewerage that comes from the septic tank.

Water Corporations should be responsible for urban sewerage treatment.

My suggestion, which I was always propagating, is that the water utility, the water board, must take responsibility for the treatment because that is linked to water. The faecal sludge treatment plant can be sited near the water treatment plant.

Emptying and transportation should be the private sector’s responsibility, but they should be regulated and coordinated.

The issue of the septic tank or toilet construction should be the responsibility of the owner or the house developer with planning permission from the local authority. So, it is not 100% taken over by the water utility. They should only handle treatment.

The critics of the model argue most of these utilities are still struggling to supply water, so why give them additional responsibility of treating sewerage?

The first question is, why are the utilities in Nigeria still struggling? Why are they not motivated? Why is the coverage so low in terms of urban water services?

The main reason was that nobody was looking at this subject. Of course, a case like Lagos, which has a separate entity dealing with sanitation mainly water borne sewerage system but also cording the treatment of faecal sludge, would certainly support this approach. So long as it is effective. But since there is nothing in most states, it is better to give somebody that may struggling. At least it can tag along with something. Of course, this giving should be accompanied with capacity enhancement i.e., construction of a faecal sludge treatment plant.

From your own experiences, why are urban water utilities not performing in Nigeria?

Based on my experiences in Nigeria and other countries, basically it is only one-word “Governance, governance, and I will repeat again governance. That is the bottom line of the crisis in Nigeria. I must say that it is a crisis. Governance is the “elephant in the room” as the main cause for failure as far as the provision of urban water supply and sanitation is concerned. Due to poor governance, infrastructure is not well looked after as you have ill qualified people who do not have the resources to manage the systems and water is not regularly available and customers do not pay. Government takes over payment for operations and maintenance including procurement of items like chemicals, fuel etc.

As soon as the issue of governance issue of governance is addressed in Nigeria for water service provision, other issues like financing for infrastructure development, management of the services will start getting better and people will start getting water. The role of government must be to create a right enabling environment “hands off but eyes on”. Governments are never designed to be actual service providers or run businesses.

We have the right laws and policies in most states in Nigeria, but unfortunately, but the issue is implementation. In a good corporate governance system, the General Manager must report to the Board, and the Board must hold the General Manager accountable. In Nigeria, the General Manager reports to the Governor, the Board Chairman also reports to the Governor and then you have the commissioner of water (essentially the state minister of water) reporting to the governor. Already this creates a big governance issue. Secondly in all the states in Nigeria, employees of the water boards are basically civil servants, following civil service rules. Water Board also operate as de facto departments of the government as they follow civil service rules which should not be the case.  This just raises a multitude of issues and problems; all embodies in poor governance.

An outsider is likely to ask this question. Why have past donor reform programmes by World Bank, USAID, EU, and others not been able to solve this challenge in at least one state?  

Firstly, any program that is externally financed must be owned by the beneficiary government. If a state government accepts certain approaches i.e., water policies for the sake of accessing the resources, certainly failure awaits.

Indeed, we need one state achieving a model situation where services are provided efficiently and effectively based on appropriate tariff levels and where the utility management have the autonomy to provide the service without need to go to government for operations and maintenance costs and staff are renumerated from the revenue collected from the customers.

We therefore just need one state government where the governor will agree and implement the main principles of urban water sector reforms. The main principles of the reforms include the following:

• One, separation of the employees of the state water board from the civil service.
• Addressing the whole governance cycle starting with clarifying and separation of roles and responsibilities for the state government, the Board of Directors and the management of the state water Board as led by the General Manager. This should also include how these are appointed.
• Three, allowing the water board or water corporation to have a tariff proportional to its cost of producing and supplying that water.
• Obviously, all this cannot happen unless you have water, so there must be some investment. A development partner or a donor should discuss with the government to provide the investment on condition that the governance issues are clearly addressed.

I must say that Nigeria being perhaps the largest economy in Africa has failed on urban water utility services. It needs to reclaim its position as one whose utility services are the best in Africa. Outside of Nigeria, most counties, including neighbouring countries, water is provided by state-owned company. While they may be on different levels of efficiency, they are all certainly far much more efficient that any state water board in Nigeria. I am not talking about privatisation here as none of these have privatised their water services; what is happening in other countries in Africa is exactly what is contained in the state water laws of Nigeria.

A state-owned water companies providing water where the employees are not civil servants but are employed based on the company HR policies, where the utility charges (bills) and collects and use the revenue to pay salaries, buy chemicals and maintain infrastructure. There are clear roles and responsibilities for the Board, management, and government as the owner of the company. Government main role is creating an enabling environment, mobilizing resources for huge infrastructure such as rehabilitation, extensions or indeed construction of new infrastructure such as treatment plants, reservoirs etc. Look at other countries in West Africa, i.e., Benin, Cameroon, Togo, Burkina Faso, Ghana etc, and all these countries are doing much better.

My concern is why reforms failed despite past interventions. From your own experiences, what do you think should be done differently?

For me, I think it is an issue of political ownership and leadership of reform programs (not necessarily political will because this is usually there). Embracing change, making that critical decision of ceding power as the Governor of direct appointment and supervision of the general manager, and giving this to the Board of Directors, entrusting management of the state water board in the general manager. Once we find a Governor willing to take this bold decision, to have employees of the water board moved from the civil service, that the water board manages its own affairs including paying of salaries, procurement of operational items such as chemicals, fuel for power generation etc I think we will be on the right path. Implementation may not be immediate but could be using a graduated programme say for five years. We can say:

• In year one, get hundred per cent funding from the government for your operations including salaries. The funding must be based on a budget prepared by the water board and should include all operational expenses. The Government should send one cheque to the water board to manage all the expenses i.e., pay salaries, procurement of chemicals and other operation and maintenance items,
• In year two, reduce the government subvention by 20%. The 20% would come from the revenue collected from the improvement of services i.e., customers.
• In year three, the government pays sixty s cent-with forty per cent from the collection, and
• In year four goes this same way government subvention would reduce to 40% and by year.
• At the beginning of year 5 government subvention would be 20%.
• At the beginning of year 6, the State Governors would have no financial responsibility for operation and maintenance of the state water board. State government takes its traditional role of providing or mobilizing resources for investment of water infrastructure.

Once we have a Governor that can take these bold decisions, we can have an exemplary water utility in Nigeria.

Is there a Nigeria factor that hindered water reform implementation?

In Nigeria, you can have all the utilities turn around activities, but the issue of governance is the major thing. If we don’t address this, we will not get anywhere. The only word that we need to address in Nigeria is governance. As you know there have been a lot of utility turn around programs designed and implemented but we have not moved an inch – such programs include 100 days programs, paying incentives to staff, private sector participation i.e., in Kaduna and Calabar in cross river state. I take these as window dressing activities. We need to lobby the governors to address this governance crisis.

Do you agree that the issue is corruption and not just governance?

When you talk about governance, it is an accountability issue; if you are addressing accountability, you are addressing corruption. Corruption, unfortunately, is the biggest issue.

Corruption, unfortunately, is the biggest issue.

What I’m trying to say is that if you address the issue of governance, making sure there is accountability and transparency, you will certainly be going to address corruption, but that is a very big animal to address. It is not to say that other African countries are not corrupt. When you look at the recent corruption list index, you find many African countries that are corrupt. However, water services are being supplied at a greater efficiency rate than in Nigeria. So, while addressing the big issue of corruption in Nigeria, I think we can still address the inefficiencies seen in the provision of water services.

Are there specific instances when you are supervising projects in Nigeria where you saw that the political class refused to take some decisions because of personal interest?

Well, that is not easy to pinpoint specifically. All I can say is that in Taraba state under USAID Effective WASH project, we agreed on steps to be taken, and I think they followed them, but the challenge came at implementation especially the thorny issue of separating state water board staff from civil service. I wouldn’t say there was any personal interest or personal gain from lack of implementation.

Of Course it also had to do with the staff themselves as well where they could not believe they can handle the system independently and manage to get paid their salaries from the water revenue. In Abia state, we had a bit of a challenge, but again it’s an issue of how we communicated with the Governor. Whenever I had opportunity to meet the Governors, the heads of service or indeed the commissioners there, they always embraced the proposals, but what would happen once you have left would be different.

Nigeria has good policies, but implementation is poor.

So, now back to what you said earlier regarding reforms being donor driven issues, we need Nigeria as a country and state needs to move away from looking at any development programme that comes from government partners as donor driven. Government (whether state or national) must be at the driving seat of any development program specially to do with reforms. Government must be genuinely convinced of the objectives of the reforms. You see people accept reforms at the beginning but when you come to implementation, nothing happens.

So, the issue of ownership is key, and how to execute that is something that people should ensure that government owns the decisions. No donor will force a government to implement reforms. Reform design and implementation should be considered a partnership approach where the donor may provide resources and government creates the needed environment including taking certain decisions to enhance the implementation of the reforms.

What do we need to put in the reform programmes to ensure that the vicious circle is broken?

First, possibly getting leadership (the governor and a few state government people i.e., head of service, commissioners for finance, water, and budget) exposed to a working system.  Like it happened in 2018 where the governor of Taraba State with a few commissioners visited Nairobi city water and sewerage company.

Secondly, if there is any investment programme, if benchmark is given, that requires certain decisions to be made and implemented i.e. utilisation of revenue collected to meet some of the operational needs rather than looking to the state government for procurement Then putting all this in some contracts and agreed with the state government that we need to engage with the Managing Director or General Manager who will be put  on a contract with specific targets to be achieved

Looking at the SUWASA and Effective WASH programmes generally, what would you say from your experience are the barriers and facilitators of the reform programme?

I think I will look at them as barriers and opportunities. The barriers are certainly what you just mentioned. If you ask to ask the General Managers of Kaduna state, Ogun state, and Port Harcourt where they signed   performance contracts, why they failed, why are these things are not working. Why is it burdensome to succeed? They will tell you the tariff is so low, but why couldn’t they have them increased?

But who does the adjustment of the tariff, it is the governor or in some states state house of assembly (meaning tariff adjustment has to be legislated). Even in cased like Kaduna state which has a regulator, but to take that decision is such a hard job. For them to achieve the tariffs issue is not easy. Because tariffs are not easy to change.

Barriers are the same issue of governance of the system, which needs to be changed because most of the states in Nigeria have new water and sanitation policies. If you look at those policies, they are world class, like other policies in Africa. Most states have changed their edicts into water supply and sanitation laws, establishing water companies and water corporations, from being known formerly as Water Boards. In some states, the changes have been done by the States House of Assembly.

Still yet, we are still not making progress. So, we have the right policies and laws, but implementation has been low. Because the Governor has to make the decision who becomes the General Manager, and member of the Board of Directors, and the staff are employed by the state government then assigned to the state water.

In terms of opportunities, these are plenty. Firstly, you have citizens that yearn for services and are willing to pay for them. Then you have vibrant and youthful qualified professionals that are not taken advantage of and yet that can make a difference. As far as urban water services are concerned Nigeria can change for the better.

Sometimes I feel that the civil society has not done much in terms of demanding for better and improved service. Nigeria needs to reach a stage the civil society and the citizens at large not just crying for space, or voice but for better services. They should not just resort to water sources of often times questionable quality and unreliable yet more expensive. The civil society needs to hold the government accountable for non-delivery of water and sanitation services.

Since Nigeria seems to be a difficult environment to work in, will you say you faced some frustration while supervising some projects in Nigeria?

I wouldn’t say Nigeria is a big complex to work in. I did not face any opposition or problems in managing projects in Nigeria. They were a very supportive team. So, I wouldn’t say it is a difficult country to work in. What is much more important for anyone to work in a country is to understand the local context. Once you understand the local context, you can work effectively and efficiently. It is most important to remain focused on that goal and have a shared vision with your team, because, without vision, there will be confusion, so you need to have a vision and focus on what you want to achieve in the country

I was not frustrated out of Nigeria.

I was not frustrated. I was trying to say that under these circumstances, how can we strive, push, and not shiver? If I have all the resources, I will say let us not give up because one day we will succeed, and Nigeria will be a leading example in Africa as far as water and sanitation service is concerned.

Are you willing to return to Nigeria if you have another assignment?

Definitely. Certainly, I will gladly come. I am really missing working in Nigeria oh except I am not missing the pepper.

A big conference is coming up in New York in March 2023. What do you think should be the key messages of the African people at that conference? I am talking about the UN water conference.

The biggest message is that we must be well-represented globally and find locally made solutions to provide water and sanitation services. The population globally is crying out there for water. We need to come together and find a lasting solution to sustainability. Even though we will not achieve the SDGs by 2030, we can share a united vision of solutions for better services for our people.

Africa is an interesting continent where there are several countries endowered with so much water, yet no water to drink but other countries that are under water stress yet with resources to resolve this, but the challenge still remains. We need to have clear political statements to present to our leaders on prioritizing sanitation and water intervention. Water and Sanitation service improvement should be seen as one way of reducing the health budget burden as there will be reduced preventable diseases.

 So, what will you advise the young water professionals to reach the pinnacle you have reached in the profession?

What you are asking is very good. Young guys should remain focused, determined, and desire to make a change in somebody’s life.

When I started my career, I was working in government, in those days, civil servants were not known to deliver as much. Still, I met a Zambian man who told me if you are coming to the government, you have a choice. You can do as much as you can because there is so much material you can read about. You can know what you can do or just come to the office, read a newspaper, do your job occasionally and so on. I decided to do the latter, which is to read and put in my best.

When given an assignment, I put in all myself to it in and produce results. To the water service producers my advice to them is this. In every country, we have a big problem of unemployed but trained youths. For example, I know of some young ladies who have qualified as engineers but cannot get a job in the water utility, even those in finance people, could not get a job.

My appeal to the water utilities is to develop a graduate recruitment scheme targeting fresh graduates i.e., recruiting at least 20 annually for different levels. In the next five years you wills see where your utility will be. Fresh graduates are full of knowledge but no experience but are willing to learn more. The youths have so much energy and they want to make a difference.

You worked for the World Bank as a senior water and sanitation specialist, and the World Bank is perhaps the biggest financier in the sector. The World Bank has also been criticised by the civil society sector, especially for imposing conditionalities for their investments’ financing and foreign content. Do you agree with this assertion, and who needs to change in World Bank financing of WASH projects?

I think I like the model by the World Bank because the model is that the money belongs to you as the government because you are the borrower. It just like you are getting a loan from a bank to buy a house. The only difference is that instead of just giving you money to buy the house you get some guidance or advice on what type of house would be appropriate for this money and to meet your needs.

Now, I think the Word bank has moved on. I see that the World Bank has in the recent past been trying by all means, to engage local experts or regional experts to program guidance in project implementation. In the old days, consultants would come from Brazil, the US or Europe for a project in Lilongwe. Indeed, they would be qualified and experienced but may not have the local context in their CV. So, things have changed.

Regarding conditionalities, I have been on both sides of the table. I worked in the government of Zambia, and I remember participating in a negotiation with the World Bank for a loan to the Zambian government. At that time, they said we needed to improve performance, collections, laws and so on. We looked at all this and saw that efficiency would be higher when we improve on all these things. And what are being termed as conditionalities – these were for our good. Because we wanted the loan to help us improve on the performance, on collections and ensure that utility operations had clearly been in the laws.

Sometimes, I blame the governments, because the “conditionalities” are a result of negotiations between two parties and agreed. Yes, they are conditionalities just like you get conditionalities for a loan from any commercial bank. The conditions are agreed between the government and the World Bank, the only issue is that the government should be transparent. Most times the “conditions” are for the better performance of the utility i.e., requiring that the utility be an autonomous institution able to hire and fire staff, able to make technical decisions that will assure sustainability of the service etc. The World Bank will not force any country to get a loan.

We can’t end this interview without asking this last question on privatisation. There are two sides to the argument, and there is the side that says since the government has failed to let the utility be handed to the private sector, it can be run with the private sector principle. The other side is that where we have tried privatisation through some management contracts in Nigeria, we have challenges. What will you suggest when opening doors for the private sector

Firstly, I don’t use the word privatisation as far as water and sanitation services are concerned. Normally privatisation should imply divestiture meaning sale of both the assets and service delivery mechanisms. Globally, I think only England privatised water service provision by selling the assets to the private sector.

I don’t think our continent is ready for that, and we don’t have any country where we have achieved that. Cote d’Ivoire is a country which has the longest history of private sector participation as far as service provision is concerned. Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Niger, Gabon, and Morocco are the five countries where full water services are provided on a long-term, 15 – 20 years by private sector. The service provision including maintenance is managed by a private company, but infrastructure belongs to the government.

Africa, Nigeria is not ready for water privatisation.

far as the private sector participation in water service delivery is concerned, I don’t think Nigeria is ready for that. It all got to do with good governance, why did I say that? It all again boils down to do with the governance. If you bring a private company to Kaduna, Kano, without addressing these issues, again, we will find ourselves in the same situation as that of Cross Rivers state (where the management contract with a private company ended up in court).

You need to have a transparent system of getting these private companies and a strong water regulator in place so that the private company does not have a field day in terms of quality of service, in terms of tariff, in terms of how they perform. So that’s why I am saying that Nigeria may not be ready to get a private company to manage the water system. Firstly, there is need to have a strong regulatory system in place (it does not have to be an autonomous agency -though this is preferred), invest in bring systems to the right operational level before inviting the private sector.

Of course, the private sector continues to provide services such as construction, repairs etc but we are talking about getting a private company to operate and maintain water services for a city or part of a city.

Are there any final comments you want to make for the Nigerian government?

To anyone who may read about this, Nigeria has a great opportunity to provide water services in the urban water and sanitation sector efficiently and effectively if only the elephant in the room of governance can be addressed. As soon as this is addressed, we will be telling a different story the next time we meet. Addressing governance will unlock a lot of opportunities for improved performance i.e., better and focussed management, prudent financial management, technical operations etc. The Nigerian urban population is thirsting for water and only efficient utilities can resolve this.