18th July, 2017
Mr Francis Obiwe, Deputy Director, River Basin Operations, Federal Ministry of Water Resources, has reiterated the Federal Government’s commitment to making the 12 river basins in the country self-financing.
Obiwe in Abuja on Tuesday said that the government wanted to reposition the river basin development authorities in its efforts to boost the country’s food security.
He said that the thrust of the agricultural policy of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was on using agriculture to diversify the national economy and reduce the country’s dependence on oil as the sole revenue earner.
Obiwe said the Federal Government decided to reposition the 12 River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs) as a pivot for meeting its food security and job creation targets, as part of efforts to promote the overall well-being of the citizenry.
He said that the repositioning the river basins entailed the need to make them full-fledged agricultural institutions via processes like partial commercialisation so as to promote their self-financing and self-reliance.
According to him, the step will aid efforts to reduce the dependency of the river basins on line budgets and promote their alternative sources of funding for them.
Besides, Obiwe said that the Federal Government had directed all the river basin development authorities to set aside minimum of 5,000 hectares for replicating the “Songhai Integrated Farming’’ model, a practice developed in the Benin Republic.
He said that the “Songhai” scheme (an integrated farming model) was already being executed in nine RBDAs, adding that one of its targets was to boost employment via the Graduate and Youth Empowerment Programme.
He said that under the programme, the beneficiaries were allotted one hectare of land each to plant rice, water melon, and other produce, adding that plans were underway to harvest the crops soon.
He said that some of the beneficiaries were involved in the Bakolori Irrigation Scheme in Talata Marafa and the Hadeija-Jamaare Irrigation Scheme.
The Minister of Water Resources, Mr Suleiman Adamu, while inaugurating new management teams for river basins, urged them to be accountable in their actions and practices, warning them that corruption would not be tolerated.
The minister then said that the revitalization of the RBDAs was aimed at reversing the consequences of corruption, bad governance and weak institutional capacity which had plagued the agencies over the years.
“In the last one year, we had taken concrete steps to resuscitate the RBDAs, the first of which was to develop an action plan and blueprint.
“The blueprint that includes `quick win’ interventions with the objectives of restoring mandate, building institutional capacity, maximising operations and output of the RBDAs,’’ Adamu said.