As part of efforts to banish poverty, unemployment and hunger in Osun State, the state government has said that it spent N2 billion in the last three years on dredging.

The Commissioner for Environment and Sanitation, Mrs Olubukola Oyawoye who disclosed this to newsmen in Osogbo recently said that the dredging was part of the six-point Integral Action plan of Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s administration.

She said “The aim of the plan is to banish poverty, unemployment and hunger from the state, as well as retore healthy living, enhance communal peace and promote functional education.”

Oyawoye recalled how at the inception of Aregbesola’s administration in 2010, the government introduced measures to curtail flooding in all flood-prone areas, adding that as at 2012, the dredging covered 123 kilometer in more than 100 communities.

She said that the dredging has paved way for better environment, and has enabled people to carry on their businesses without hindrance, stressing that businesses would have been hindered if there was flooding.

According to her, what the government had spent in three years cannot equal what can be lost to flood disaster in one year.

In Osogbo alone, no fewer than 15 rivers, streams and canals which include Okooko Ogbaagba, Akepe, Odigun, Arungbo and Nlekuwodo are being dredged and de-silted on a continuous basis.