Business
World Bank Disburses N1.2bn To Fadama Groups
The World Bank has disbursed more than N 1.2 billion to various farmer groups in the South East zone, an official disclosed last Wednesday.
Mr Obadiah Tohomdet, the bank’s Senior Communications Specialist, told newsmen in Abuja that over 683 Fadama Community Associations (FCAs) and 7,712 Fadama Users Groups (FUGs) benefitted.
Tohomdet said that the beneficiaries cut across the five states in the zone comprising Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo states.
He disclosed this at the end of a four-day World Bank/Federal Government Joint Supervision Mission to the zone.
According to him, the money was expended on more than 2,600 sub-projects, adding that 260 of the sub-projects have been completed while the rest were at various levels of satisfactory completion.
He listed some of the funded sub-projects to include rural roads, culverts, markets, cold rooms and poultry farms.
Others are cassava processing mills, palm oil processing mills, fish ponds, piggeries and rice mills.
According to him, Governor Martins Elechi of Ebonyi attributed the state government’s inability to pay counterpart fund promptly to numerous contending priorities.
Elechi told the mission that there were other donor-sponsored development projects, for which the government had not been regular in meeting its obligation due to what he referred to as the economic meltdown in the state.
He , however, said that the government was in the process of streamlining its activities to meet the needs of the people.
“The state government will review her further participation in the project and come up with proposals which would be forwarded to the World Bank for possible consideration,” he said.
Tohomdet noted that Ebonyi was in arrears of 201 0 and 2011 counterpart funds and appealed to the governor to offset all outstanding debts.
He also observed that the Fadama programme tallied with the state government’s poverty alleviation programme.
He added that the objective of the mission was to assess the level of project implementation, with a view to proffering solutions that would help move the programme forward and ensure its sustainability.