Cross River Doles Out N29.2m for Poverty Reduction

from All Africa

Leadership (Abuja)

By Edem Edem
Cross River

Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross River State has restated Government's focus on rural development and its preparedness to partner with development and donor agencies to help the rural areas grow.

Imoke stated this while presenting the first trench cheque of project funds of N29, 240,438.19 to 19 Community Project Implementation (CPI) members under the State Community based Poverty Reduction Agency, Thursday in Calabar. Imoke reasoned that the activities of the agency were relevant and important to create development in rural areas because not every body was expected to move to urban areas to make a living.

He commended the federal government and World Bank for partaking in the project, disclosing that government had embarked on various programmes with a view to improving the living standard of rural dwellers.

According to him, two agencies, the Rural Development Agency and the Rural Electrification Agency which would be jointly sponsored by the state and local governments to impact positively on the lives of the people have been established.

The governor stressed that the two agencies were expected to commence operations immediately with an aggressive approach towards health-care programme where 130 health centres across the state had been earmarked for rehabilitation before the end of March, this year, with the view to making health facilities available in every nook and cranny of the State.

The governor noted that he was proud of the Agency as the state looked forward to creating facilities for more projects for more communities to partake in commending members of the Project Implementation committee for having the opportunity to serve their communities and thereby impacting on the lives.

He opined that building of community school and hospital projects would make a big difference on the lives of the people as well as reduce the level of poverty amongst them, saying that "Cross River is rich in spirit, culture and mineral resources, so it is not poor and that is why the Poverty Reduction Board has been replaced by Ministry of Social Development and other agencies to improve on the lives of the people". Imoke assured the agency of government's support as well as its readiness to make available necessary inputs to make it succeed.

Chairman, Board of Directors of Cross River State Community Based Poverty Reduction Project (CPRP), Chief Asuquo Ekpenyong, said the project started in 2001 as a pilot project in the country as a partnership between the World Bank, Federal Government and the State Government.

He added that the pilot phase which was billed to close in August 2006, was adjudged successful by the World Bank and consequently, a supplementary credit of US $25 million was approved by the World Bank to support its initiative, would now close at the end of June, 2008.

Ekpenyong disclosed that "the project seeks to reduce poverty among the people particularly those in rural communities. On this project, the community identifies, designs, implements and manages projects upon completion".

The chairman explained that since the inception of this administration, CPRP had approved a total of 36 Community Projects amounting to N159, 385,115.90 with disbursement made to 15 communities in August, 2007.

The acting general manager of the Agency, Mr. Victor Ovat, in a remark on "roles/responsibilities of stakeholders", said the project launch was important in the life of community project because every one was expected to participate, adding that there was a need for regular meetings to inform all of the progress of the project.

Ovat added that the community monitors the project and also provides counterpart funds in cash and kind in the course of the project while the agency provides grants to the communities in two trenches, saying that the community had to be prudent and transparent in its dealings so that people would not suspect embezzlement of funds.