By Henry Ibya, Makurdi
Benue State Governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, has assured people of the state that his administration would continue to complement efforts of citizens, particularly farmers to improve production capacity to feed the state and the entire nation.
Governor Alia who gave the assurance Sunday, during commissioning of 33 tractors and the symbolic presentation of 25,000 dollar cheques as Community Revolving Fund Loans to 10 selected community groups at the office complex of Benue State Agro Climate Resilience In Semi- Arid Landscapes, BN- ACReSAL in Makurdi, lauded efforts of the World Bank for listing Benue as a benefitting state.
He expressed optimism that with their support, Benue would have no business with food insecurity which is a major challenge to many other states and added that Benue would consolidate on its status of food basket of the nation.
The governor noted that with the World Bank support, Benue farmers would do even better and promised on behalf of his administration to encourage farmers to do more, adding that government would give participants a close supervision to keep them on their toes for the purpose of the facility to be achieved for others to also benefit from the value chain and commended the World Bank as well as the federal government for the support.
Also speaking Dr Joy Iyanya, World Bank representative on the AcReSAL project in the 19 Northern States, said as an institution, the World Bank believed in empowerment of women because of their prudence in managing resources, expressing optimism that beneficiaries would use the revolving funds to turn around fortunes of their communities.
In a remark, national coordinator ACReSAL, Dr Abdulhameed Umar, explained that the facility provided by the World Bank through support of the federal government, accessed by the Benue State Governor is the highest ever investment of the Bank.
He said the money would be given to the selected communities as Community Revolving Funds for the purpose of the groups to improve their livelihood at the level of agricultural value chain, helping beneficiaries to become rich in such a way to be able to meet their daily financial obligations such as shelter, feeding, payment of school fees and other critical needs, adding that the tractors should equally be used to improve food production.
The national coordinator ACReSAL commended governor Alia for providing counterpart funding of 1 billion naira for take- off of the project and warned beneficiaries against marrying of new wives and buying cars, advising that monies be used judiciously to improve livelihood of their communities as their ability to apply the resources would ginger the World Bank to introduce more intervention programmes to the state.