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Staff of the Ekiti
State Water Corporation have given a 24-hour ultimatum to companies
handling water projects in the state to vacate the sites or face their
wrath.

The workers, acting
under the aegis of Amalgamated Unions of Public Corporation Civil
Service Technical and Recreational Employees, said the state under the
former governor, Segun Oni, expended N400million on the concession
projects without significant results.

They also alleged that the water supplied since the programme kicked off has not met the required standard.

The workers, led by
their Chairman, Olutayo Gbenga, staged a protest march to the site.
They demanded the immediate revocation of the contracts signed with
Kemeng Nigeria Limited and Ero Power Company for the supply of water in
Ado Ekiti and other parts of the Ekiti North Senatorial District of the
state.

Some of the
placards the staff carried read: “Ekiti State deserves better water
services’, ‘N400 million spent on water concessioning in six months’,
‘KEMENG and Ero Power is feeding fat on Ekiti’, ‘Governor Kayode
Fayemi, save Ekiti from Ero Power and KEMENG”.

Mr. Olutayo
expressed disappointment that state employees are now redundant,
despite being more competent to handle the water generation project
than the concessionaires.

“Before, N13
million naira was being sent by the state government to supply water
and things were better off then, but now, the government spends over
N65million to generate water as a result of concessioning and things
are not better off and they should be asked to go”, the union leader
said.

The General Manager
of the Corporation, Julius Olofin, told the workers that the programme
was designed by the state government and that only the government of
the day has the power to stop it. He promised to take the matter to the
Head of Service, Femi Adewumi, for onward transmission to state’s
governor, Kayode Fayemi, for his intervention.