Rivers govt shuts down 3 sachet water factories

By Bisola Adeyemo

As part of efforts to improve potable water in Rivers State, the state government on Monday sealed three pure water factories around the Diobu area in Port Harcourt.

The government referred the factories as illegal and substandard water factories in the state.

Commissioner for Water Resources, Tamunosisi Gogo Jaja, who led the operations team, assured Rivers people of the government’s commitment to ensure that quality water is delivered to the public.

Daily post quoted him as saying, “our government intends to protect the people of Rivers state, protect those who live and do business here, the health of our people is very important.

“The interest of government is to ensure that whether private or public, we deliver quality water to our people and in so doing it is our responsibility as a ministry to ensure that those who are into this industry, shouldn’t be there to make profit, they should be there to render services which should be commensurate with the charges they are imposing on people and residents of Rivers State.

“What we saw in the field I must say are quite disappointing . You will discover that our people are served with low standard either in the name of table water, sachet water or bottled water. We observed that some of them do this business in the worst of environment. Some of them don’t bother about hygiene.”

The commissioner also disclosed that some water factories were given two weeks to improve on their facilities.