DELTA GOV'T SPENT IN EXCESS OF N64 BILLION ON PROJECTS - DR KINGSLEY EMU.

DR. IFEANYI OKOWA

The Delta State Commissioner for Economic Planning, Dr Kingsley Emu has disclosed that the state government spent in excess of N64 billion on roads network infrastructure and other people oriented projects from May 2015 to September 2017.



Giving the figures while fielding questions from journalists, Dr. Emu disclosed that 60 projects out of over 100 projects have been completed while 30 percentage are in advance state of completion.

According to Commissioner for Economic Planning, the state governor, Senator (Dr.) Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa is totally committed to ensuring peace, Security and socio-economic well being of Deltans.

"The Okowa administration has recorded giant strides in youth and women empowerment especially job and wealth creation, through the Office of the Chief Job Creation Officer".

"We have the YAGEP programme which is for youths between 18 and 35 years; and all they needed to do was to focus on agriculture, rice cultivation, tomatoes, vegetables and there has been a string of successes", he added.

"For the STEP Programme, it is where we have graduates as tilers, plumbers, ICT, Caterers, hairdressers and welders. We looked at the labour market and built their skills around available jobs to key in very strongly and that has helped out".

Dr. Emu further disclosed that; "We have trained and equipped over 2,324 people and over 80 per cent of them are graduates".

The Economic Planning Commissioner noted that, Governor Okowa, in his determination to see to the socio-economic well being of the citizenry, also "set up a youth monitoring and mentoring agency under his office. That agency moves round to have an oversight functions between the mentor and the mentee", he said.

Speaking on issues of financial support in terms of operational capital, he revealed that "the state government gives them the critical cushioning and we have had them in clusters and in cooperatives to share experiences and expertise which is even a more winning success factor".

Explaining further, the Commissioner for Economic Planning stated that, "like the last YAGEP and STEP Trade Fair and Exhibition we had, you see the very best and there is a pull factor".

"I was very excited when some said they sold between N600,000 and N700,000 and they were happy and didn't want that fair to end", Emu enthused.

"By taking them to exhibitions, we are also beginning to introduce the concept of proper packaging of their products and services".

The Delta state  Commissioner also noted that, about 300 companies are coming to Delta State.

For instance, "Agro All Africa is taking off in February with 1,500 hectares of land, another 300 hectares of land in Ugbodu axis of the state and that project is strictly vegetables".

"We also have Norseworthy, the Agro end of Rain Oil has just acquired 3,000 hectares of land at Akwukwu".

The whole idea, according to the Commissioner, is to grow oil Palm along the value chain and take them through processing. We also have agro step, we have a lot of people who are interested, Kingsley Emu added.