Enugu state Governor, Dr Peter Mbah ,has appealed to World bank to release the sum of $3million support for Agricultural development in Enugu state.to enable the state complete World bank -Federal Government assisted agricultural projects in the state
He made the appeal on Friday, July 7, when World bank- Federal Government and Agro-Processing, Productivity Enhancement and Livelihoods Improvement Support (APPEALS), project team paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Government House,Enugu.
The Governor, who thanked the team for the visit, said it was not by accident that Enugu state was picked out of the six states for the project and visit.
He expressed gratitude to the team on how they managed the project, said his administration would build on it to improve agriculture and help small medium businesses in the state to grow.
He described Enugu State as a ” Homeland for ndi Igbo”( Igbo people), saying, “Enugu is the melting point of Nigeria. We are very hospitable, We are very cosmopolitan “.
The Governor said that the state government was aware of outstanding projects, just completed six.
He said that he was informed that
$3million would be released by the World bank for Agricultural projects .
“Your Country Director wrote me and promises to release $3 million for the state to support agriculture and we are going to utilize the money effectively when released.
“We are going to provide farm lands, build access roads to farmers and sustain the project as it is one of the things in our manifesto,” he said.
Mbah assured them that his administration was going to migrate from crude way of farming to modern agriculture.
He added that he was going to establish special allied processing zone to boost production.
He also assured that he will make sure that the processing zone is completed.
The governor promised to use the money judiciously, saying, “we are going to deploy it objectively. We are going to fund access roads to our farmland.”
He urged the World bank to release the $3million to enable hem complete the projects.
“This program will be sustained. We are looking at scaling up agriculture to make sure that we increase our production.”, the governor said.
Earlier, the National project Coordinator, for APPEALS project in Nigeria, Mohammed Jobdi said that APPEALS project is a World Bank-Federal Government supported project. The project is being implemented in six states, Cross River, Enugu, Kaduna, Kano, Kogi and Lagos states .
He said they were in Enugu to assess the level.of implementation in different participating states which Enugu state is one of .
Jobdi added that the project started in
2017 and will end on 30th, September,2023.
In an interview on his assessment of the project, the National Project Coordinator said ,
“From the overall performance of the project, we can say that the project had done well in all the States.
“The project started in 2017. We have five components of the project. Ours is to build capacity of the farmers, do different trainings and empower them to support whatever enterprises and business they are doing in Agriculture, right from production, processing and marketing.
“Under the women and youth empowerment program, about 1,700 people had also been supported in each participating state in which 5% of the physically challenged were trained because social inclusion is very important. We set aside 5% out of this 1,700. and included persons with disabilities into the women and youth program.
‘So, so far so good, we are here in Enugu to see what they had been able to achieve because the project is fast coming to a closure and we want to see the level of implementation in this state.
“Support for infrastructure in the agric business is also part of the implementations strategies. We have
15 Cottage and aggregation centres are being established in these states, he said.
The National Coordinator added that the project has different components, which included productivity enhancement support, how to get investors plans, women and youth and the post management.
Jobdi disclosed that 13km roads were being constructed to provide access road to the farm.
In his brief remarks, the World Bank Task Team Leader, Dr Manieve Sene, said that in spite of the initial challenges facing the project in the country, it was able to record huge successes.
Author: Maureen Ikpeama