NIGER DELTA AFFAIRS MINISTRY, STAKEHOLDERS TO DISCUSS ALTERNATIVE REVENUE SOURCES FOR THE REGION......MINISTER SAYS


USANI NGURU USANI

With the return of peace in the Niger Delta, owing to efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari led administration and the active participation of the Honourable Minister in charge of the Niger Delta Affairs Ministry, Pastor Usani Uguru Usani, stakeholders from the region are seeking ways to diversify the economy.
This was the disclosure by the Honourable Minister who is proposing a meeting with the relevant stakeholders including the Enugu state government, to seek ways of moving the region away from over dependent on oil revenues, saying there were other resources lying untapped in the region and Enugu State. 

This was part of a press statement signed by the Director of Press, Marshall Gundu.

In the statement, the Honourable Minister, Pastor Usani Uguru Usani proposed that the meeting be held on 23rd of March, 2017.

According to the statement, “the inclusion of Enugu State is in recognition of the vast cashew plantation it is endowed with; the meeting will also be an avenue to encourage artisanship in the region”, the Minister added.

Pastor Usani made this revelation while speaking at a meeting with the Ambassadors of the European Union at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherland in Abuja, yesterday. The meeting was called by the European Union to enable the Minister brief the international community on the activities of the Ministry in curbing the prevailing socio-economic challenges in the Niger Delta region.

The Honourable Minister noted that the main responsibility of his Ministry was to formulate policy for the development of the Niger Delta region and that in November 2016; President Muhammadu Buhari had saddled the Ministry with the supervisory role for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), so as to give room for efficiency in utilizing government resources.

Stressing that, the intention of Mr. President was for the Ministry to ensure that “NDDC gear its programmes in line with the focus of the present administration, Pastor Usani reiterated that all projects that have been awarded and carried out by the Commission will be subjected to technical audit and status verification, to justify expenditure”.

In a bid to ascertain value for money for the projects executed by the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs since inception, the Minister disclosed that he had to set up an independent audit committee which came up with the fact that government has spent about N423 Billion on Projects in the Niger delta region, noting that about 50% of such, were duplicated projects in the region.

Thanking the European Union for its efforts in the Niger Delta Support Programme which he said was aimed at providing clean water for many communities in the region; Pastor Nguru said that due to the Ministry’s intervention, some states had paid up their counterpart fund, while some have indicated interest to pay up soon.

He called for the collaboration and possible intervention and support of the European Union in the areas of Youth and Women Empowerment, Capacity Building in Agriculture and other Vocations, Household Economic Aid, Education, among others, for the common man in the Niger Delta region.

Earlier, Ambassador John Groffen of the Kingdom of Netherlands welcomed the Minister and assured him of the readiness of the European Union to assist Nigeria in bringing more development projects and programmes to the Niger Delta region.

The Ambassador called on the Nigerian government to unravel the root cause of youth restiveness in the region.

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