Cross River Water Board has assured that Calabar residents will begin enjoying 24 hours of uninterrupted public water supply from next week.

In an interview on Monday, Victor Ekpo, the board’s managing director, said that parts of the capital city had started enjoying public water supply.

Mr Ekpo said what was delaying the total coverage was damage to pipes by a company laying optic fibre cables across the city.

He explained that the board had refused to pump out water to avoid flooding the city.

Speaking further, the managing director said the water supply from other sub-stations in the state would be delayed because of some contingencies.

However, Mr Ekpo said the board had started pumping out water to some residents of Ogoja, in the Ogoja Local Government Area of the state.

“We are working hard at sorting out these issues, and I can assure that soonest, we will have our people smile again,” he said.

Mr Ekpo appealed to customers indebted to the water board to settle their bills to enjoy the improved service.

Recently, Mr Ekpo cried out that N1.2 billion debts owed to the water board by customers had affected its service delivery to the people.

He stated that the debts covering January 2020 to March 2021 had made it impossible to replace broken pipes.

Mr Ekpo added that the debts made it impossible to fix the generating sets and buy chemicals for water treatment.

(NAN)