The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs (MNDA), Usani Uguru, has said the ministry was unable to achieve its targeted goals under the developmental mandate of President Muhammadu Buhari for the Niger Delta region as a result of poor budgetary allocation.
Usani, who made this known yesterday at the official presentation of the ministry’s scorecard between 2015 and 2019 said, despite this challenge, among others, the ministry was still able to achieve landmark achievement in the region.
“Our major focus was the establishment and commissioning of projects that had direct impact on the lives of residents of the Niger Delta region.
“During our administration, skill acquisition centres, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) centres, housing units, electrification projects, erosion control, motorized water schemes and cassava processing plants, among others, were established and commissioned in various locations in the nine Niger Delta states,” he said.
He disclosed that more roads would have been built but for the low budget adding that especially the completion of the East West Road project, sections one to four would have been completed but for some technical hitches.
“But approval of section five of the project had been gotten and the design and contract for the project would ‘be signed any moment from now. On the housing units, some housing units had been completed though not allocated to the right recipients, yet as some were illegally occupied.”
He revealed that youth restiveness in the region has been reduced to the barest minimum as a result of lots of policies and programmes that have been put in place to curb the menace.
“The Ministry had trained and empowered about 3,000 youths on various vocational skills, with a minimum of N300,000 as starter packs.”
He added that the Project Audit Committee set up to appraise the performance of contractors has enhanced their performance while adding that defaulting contractors who had abandoned their projects midway, after payment, and who ran the risk of being reported to the EFCC for prosecution, went back to site to complete their work.
In his remark, the Minister of State for MNDA, Prof Claudius Daramola, said they were determined to change the narrative in the Niger Delta region in accordance with the “Change mantra” of the present administration.
Daramola said that he worked with Usani to improve the security and standard of living of the region adding that despite the paucity of funds experienced by the ministry, projects abandoned by previous administrations were completed.
On youth restiveness in the region, the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator, Presidential Amnesty Programme, Prof Charles Dokubo, said, a lot of measures have been put in place to address the issue.
“This was the major reason the issue of pipeline vandalism is now a thing of the past. Training and empowerment of youths also contributed to the relative peace in the region as a lot of vocational training centres had been established. We don’t just train for training sake but we train for job placement,” Prof. Dokubo said.
