Nigeria, Cameroun, Niger and Chad are to spend $14.5 billion on water transfer in the Lake Chad Basin.
The project is designed to recharge the already receding Lake Chad as part of a five (5) year investment planning spanning 2013 to 2017 to be carried out by the four (4) countries.
The Auditor-General for the Federation, Mr. Ukura Samuel, speaking at the opening ceremony of the fifth meeting of the Joint Environmental Audit Team of Lake Chad in Abuja, remarked that several public outcries aimed at saving Lake Chad, restoring its ecosystem and promoting socio economic development of the people living in the basin had been expressed through 14 Summits of Heads of States and Governments and 58 Council of Ministers of the affected region.
The inaugural planning meeting of the Joint Environmental Audit of Lake Chad was held in 2012 and came out with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the drying Lake Chad caused by human activities and climate change which was signed by Chad, Niger, Cameroun and Nigeria Republics.
The objectives of the MoU were to verify whether the signatory states complied with standards and best practices of better water and resource management with a view to restoring Lake Chad to its previous surface areas of 25,000 square kilometres from the present level of 200 square kilometres. Determine whether the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) carried out its responsibilities, evaluated and monitor the performance of the partner states with regard to the implementation of various water use control measures.
At the opening ceremony of the 5th Lake Chad Audit meetings, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Accounts, Dr. Ahmad Lawan stated that it was understatement to say that Lake Chad is receding, stressing that the appropriate statement is that Lake Chad is disappearing.
Because of this situation, Senator Lawan noted that the North, Eastern part of the country had been exposed to various problems such as economic deprivation and social unrest as a result of the fact that many people, who eke out their living from Lake Chad could no longer do so.
Dr. Ahmad Lawan while appealing to international donor organisations to rescue the territory assured that the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria would do everything possible to ensure that the report of the Committee get the approval of the National Assembly anytime it is out.
Group Photograph of participants at the opening ceremony of the fifth meeting of the Joint Environmental Audit Team of Lake Chad in Abuja.