Six States To Benefit From World Bank Loan

Six states in the country are to benefit from the new $500 million loan facility for rural and road construction from the World Bank.
In a statement made available to The Tide by AgroNigeria, on Monday, this was  revealed by the National Coordinator, Rural Access Mobility Project  (RAMP), Engr. Ularamu Ubandoma, at a workshop organised by the  RAMP, Federal Project Monitoring Unit, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), in Abuja, recently.
According to the engineer, the rural roads construction projects are expected to increase farmer’s access  to farm inputs and markets.
He said it would also reduce post-harvest losses and the loans are such that participating state governments will pay five per cent counterpart funding while the federal government is to make a 95 per cent refund.
“This RAMP project is something that will transform  the lives of the rural people, and all the states in the federation are qualified, especially non-RAMP states including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)”, he said.
He further disclosed that  the programme is targeting  10-12 states in the current RAMP 3 project.
“The essence of this workshop is to discuss selection criteria for participation so that each state can go back and make their final submission to the FPMU which will analyse it and  submit to the World Bank”, he said.
Ubandoma noted that due to the  success  recorded in RAMPs I and 2 projects in Kaduna and Cross River States  respectively, more states  have indicated interest to participate.
He explained that about  100 kilometres of rural roads and 143 river crossing were constructed in RAMP I while 2,000 kilometres of rural roads and 143 river roads are being targeted for RAMP 2 with 80 river crossings.