The World Bank has disbursed 120 million US dollars in support of the implementation of the national urban water project in Nigeria, a senior official said here Thursday.

Disclosing this at a workshop on the National Urban Water Sector Reform Project in the capital Abuja, Hafiz Khan, the World Bank's country director in Nigeria, said the bank had also resolved to "invest an additional 100 million dollars to finance similar projects before end of the present administration."

The initiative on water supply by President Olusegun Obasanjo's government was among the best supported by the bank in Africa and other developing nations, he said.

He added that the private sector participation in Nigeria's water program would help draw attention of other donor agencies in financing various water programs in the most populous African country with a population of 130 million.

The World Bank official also reiterated the bank's determination to support other sectors of Nigeria's economy, especially those that had direct bearing on the socioeconomic development of the people.

According to Nigerian Water Resources Minister Mukhtari Shagari, the Nigerian federal government has spent more than 180 billion naira (about 1.36 billion dollars) on the provision of potable drinking water to Nigerians in the last six years.

"The increased attention in funding has resulted in the astronomical increase in the water supply coverage from 35 percent in 1999 to 65 percent at the end of 2004," Shagari said.

The intervention of the World Bank and other donor agencies in the nation's water sector was as a result of inadequate resources to meet up the 80 percent target by the 2007, he said.

Source: Xinhua