Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) has publicly condemned what it describes as a lack of transparency and significant procedural violations in the Lagos Water Corporation’s (LWC) ongoing procurement process for mini and micro water projects under a Build-Finance-Operate-Transfer (BFOT) Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model.
The allegations come in the wake of the LWC’s tender issued in September 2025, inviting proposals from private firms for the rehabilitation, upgrade, operation, and maintenance of several public water facilities across Lagos.
This includes key locations such as Lekki and Akilo Waterworks, Victoria Island Annex, Magodo Waterworks, as well as Abesan, Alexander, and Apapa Waterworks.
In a statement released on Sunday by Robert Egbe, Media & Communications Officer, CAPPA criticized Lagos State’s systematic nondisclosure regarding its controversial plan to privatize public water supply through PPP arrangements.
The organization argues that this approach violates mandatory transparency requirements outlined in state law and undermines accountability in the governance of essential public resources.
“Despite the Lagos State PPP Disclosure Framework (2024) which mandates proactive public disclosure at every stage of PPP projects, the LWC has continued with its procurement process shrouded in secrecy,” CAPPA stated.
The Framework specifies that essential documents, including feasibility studies, Requests for Proposals (RFPs), bidder lists, evaluation criteria, and procurement milestones, should be published on a public portal without the need for Freedom of Information (FoI) requests. CAPPA insists that these requirements are not optional; they are mandatory.
Since the procurement process began, CAPPA claims that none of the necessary disclosures have been made available to the public. The organization noted that comprehensive RFP details have been withheld from stakeholders and communities directly impacted by the proposed concessions.
Key information, such as bidder identities, evaluation criteria, procurement timelines, and award decisions, remain undisclosed. Furthermore, the official Lagos PPP disclosure portal, managed by the Office of Public-Private Partnerships (OPPP), has not published any documentation related to the process.
Instead of complying with the Framework’s requirements for transparency, CAPPA points out that the only substantial public information regarding the procurement has surfaced through a paywalled foreign industry publication, *Global Water Intelligence*. This report indicated that the LWC had received 19 proposals by October 2025 and expects to finalize award decisions by March 2026 for a 10-year contract.
CAPPA’s statement underscores the need for greater transparency and accountability in the LWC’s procurement process, urging the Lagos State government to uphold its own laws and ensure that vital public resources are managed with the highest standards of openness and public participation.
“In February 2026, CAPPA also learned through foreign news that Lagos State has initiated a parallel process to privatise wastewater infrastructure, beginning with wastewater treatment plants, including facilities in Lekki.” The statement described this situation as “deeply troubling and revealing.”
“It is disturbing,” CAPPA said, “that residents of Lagos and affected communities must rely on an expensive foreign subscription journal to learn about decisions concerning their own public water and sanitation systems, while their government and its water agency refuse to disclose the same information domestically.”
CAPPA added that the pattern reflects a broader contradiction in the PPP process.
“The Lagos State Government and certain international organisations actively supporting this approach and governance model continue to disregard disclosure and accountability standards with impunity in Nigeria. These are standards they would never contemplate breaching in their own jurisdictions.”
The organisation emphasised that the secrecy surrounding the mini and micro waterworks PPP is a substantive governance failure with direct implications for affordability, access, and long-term public control of water services.
“Experience across jurisdictions shows that PPP water arrangements frequently result in tariff escalation, reduced public oversight, and long-term fiscal risks, while failing to deliver sustained infrastructure investment.
“Just as we are already witnessing in Lagos, the ongoing push toward private participation in water and wastewater infrastructure is proceeding through shady processes that limit democratic scrutiny and weaken public accountability,” it added.
In light of these, CAPPA made the following demands:
“The Lagos State Government should immediately suspend the mini and micro waterworks PPP procurement until full compliance with statutory disclosure obligations is achieved, alongside the prompt publication of all outstanding procurement documents, including feasibility studies, RFP documentation, bidder identities and track records, and evaluation criteria.
“There should be an independent review and oversight to safeguard procedural integrity and public interest, as well as genuine public engagement and stakeholder consultation in all decisions concerning water governance and infrastructure management in Lagos State.
“Finally, the state must urgently correct the brazen and ongoing violations of its own transparency framework.
“Transparency obligations in water governance are statutory. The Lagos State Government cannot simultaneously claim adherence to PPP disclosure standards while conducting one of its most consequential water infrastructure procurements in secrecy. Compliance with the law is the minimum condition for legitimate governance of public resources,” CAPPA said.
The organisation also maintained that publicly financed and democratically governed water systems remain the most equitable and accountable model. It therefore called on the Lagos State Government to strengthen public institutions and essential infrastructure by allocating increased public funding, reinvesting sector revenues into system maintenance and expansion, and prioritising universal access over commercialisation.’
CAPPA concluded by urging all residents, civil society actors, labour unions, and concerned stakeholders to pay close attention to the state’s water governance processes and actively defend transparency, accountability, and public interest in decisions affecting the lives of Lagosians.
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