Minister carpets River Basin Development Authorities on food sufficiency


The Minister of Water Resources, Mr Suleiman Adamu has rated the River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs) poor in ensuring food sufficiency in Nigeria.
This is contained in a statement issued by Mr Alex Okoh, the Head of Public Communications, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in Abuja on Thursday.
The statement noted that Adamu said this recently at the inauguration of the Steering Committee of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) and Technical Sub-Committee of the RBDAs in Abuja.
He said that RBDAs had failed to perform to their full capacity over the years.
Adamu said they did not realise that they were vital instruments for the attainment of self-sufficiency in food production and equitable allocation of water resources across Nigeria.
He, however, charged members of the committees to work assiduously to reform the river basins and the water sector.
The reforms, he said would drive the agricultural sector towards the provision of food security, creation of jobs, diversification of the economy and development of the rural economy.
Adamu urged members to consider the work as a national assignment aimed at achieving President Muhammadu Buhari’s promises to Nigerians through diversifying the nation’s economy.
This, he stated would require repositioning the agricultural sector through effective utilisation of water resources and the river basins.
He enjoined the committees to work at a faster pace and promised to provide the necessary support and cooperation to enable the teams deliver on approved Terms of Reference (TOR) and work plans without delay.
He listed the TOR for the steering committee as the finalisation of the National Water Resources Bill and to ensure its passage by the National Assembly.
Others are the review and update of policies on national water resources management and national irrigation, and drainage policy and strategy.
Adamu said that membership of the steering committee chaired by him cut across the relevant government agencies and industry experts.
The statement also quoted the acting Director-General of BPE, Mr Vincent Akpotaire as saying that the reform of the RBDAs was a major step taken to empower the rural dwellers thereby stemming rural-urban drift.
Akpotaire described the minister as the champion and pillar of support for the drive to make the reform of the RBDAs.
He said private sector involvement was not to take the assets; rather they were to farm the river basins irrigation facilities while the RBDAs were the landlords.
Akpotaire said that the private sector would provide the funding required to develop the River Basins, and if well managed would no longer depend on treasury for sustenance.
He said that some of the benefits to be realised from the reforms were power generation from small hydro dams and commercial agricultural activities to empower rural Nigeria through the creation of economic hubs.
The statement said the Director-General, Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Mr Aminu Dikko said there was need for capacity building through training and retraining, especially on the concept of Public Private Partnership (PPP).

The statement recalled that 12 RBDAs were established in the 1970s to address the problem of drought and likely famine the country might face at that time.

The journey towards the reform of the RBDAs started with the enactment of the Public Enterprises (Privatisation & Commercialisation) Act of 1999, which listed the RBDAs among the Public Enterprises (PEs) for partial-commercialisation.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Monsanto Nigeria Launches 3 Conventional Maize Hybrids

Maize farmers across Nigeria now have 3 high yielding conventional maize hybrids to choose from the DEKALB ® brand as Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Limited launches 3 conventional maize hybrids. The launch held in Abuja on Tuesday May 17 2016 had in attendance farmers, development partners, government regulatory bodies and other stakeholders from both the private and public sectors of the economy. The launch of these hybrid seeds follows their registration by the National Committee on Naming, Registration and Release of Crop Varieties, Livestock Breeds and Fisheries in February 2016. The white maize hybrid, DK234 alongside the 2 yellow maize hybrids, DK920 and DK818 obtained registration approval for use in Nigeria after testing across various agro ecological zones on multi-location farms. The white maize hybrid DK234 with yield potential of 13 tonnes per hectare is well adapted for the Southern and Northern Guinea Savanna ecologies and shows tolerance to Maize Streak Virus, ...
Read more

Tomato disease outbreak: Institute appeals for research funding

The National Horticultural Research Institute, Ibadan, has appealed for funding to carry out research and create awareness on the tuta absoluta pest on tomatoes. The Institute’s Head of Vegetable Programme, Dr Olagorite Adetula, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Friday that there was an urgent need to tackle the problem to save the economy. Adetula said the institute needed money to do surveillance survey of the pest/damage, ascertain the impact of the damage and proffer solution for eradicating the pest. She appealed to the Federal Government to help the institute get pheromones to lure and trap the pests and distribute to farmers. ``Spraying insecticides is not the best, the pest has high production rate, some of them can escape while spraying it and they will be resistant to the insecticide thereby causing us more cost. ``The pheromones can be used for six to eight weeks before changing it, it is very effective, the pest has short life cycle, wit...
Read more

10,000 women farmers to be engaged in ECOWAS rice project – official

Image
 Mr Richard Olafare, the President, Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nigeria (SEEDAN) says 10,000 women will be engaged in the recently inaugurated Rice Seed Up-Scaling Project. This is contained in a presentation on the project made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday. Olafare said 8,000 youths would also be engaged in the scaling project. According to him, the number of women and youths represented 50 per cent and 40 per cent respectively of the 20,000 farmers that will participate in the project. NAN reports that the project is an initiative of the West Africa Seed Programme (WASP) in support of the ECOWAS Rice Offensive Programme that was inaugurated in 2014. Among other objectives, it is targeting the production of 60,000 metric tonnes of paddy rice for Nigeria by December 2017, using 1,200 certified seeds. The project is being implemented by SEEDAN in collaboration with the West and Central Africa Council for Agricultura...
Read more