By Ewa Innocent, The Sight News
Abakaliki: In Ebonyi state, 10 million naira has been disbursed by Ikwo local government council to the 13 autonomous communities in the area to embark on community projects.
This was in fulfilment of Governor David Umahi’s,earlier promise during his second tenure electioneering campaign, where he announced that 10 million naira would be given to each of the various autonomous communities in the state to embark on community projects of choice.
At Onuebonyi Echara,the council’s headquarters, while disbursing the fund, the chairman, Ikwo local government area, Elder John Nnabo said the fund would be released in batches—first batch N4 million while third and fourth batches would be N3 million respectively, to the benefiting communities, so as to ensure effective monitoring of the choice projects.
He stressed that March 2020 has been marked by the council as deadline for the completion of these projects in the communities.
He described governor David Umahi as a man of his words, assuring that the fund would be effectively utilised to drive home developments in the rural communities,in line with the policy thrust of his administration.
Elder Nnabo also said the projects to be executed has already been agreed upon by members of each community before the granting of autonomy to the local government by the Federal government, and enumerated some of the projects to be executed to include; road construction, building of civic centres, construction of bridges, electricity, and cassava processing plant.
According to him, “The projects have already been agreed upon. Some said water, some said electricity, some said road construction,and an undertaking has been taken. The exercise started before the granting of autonomy to local government, now that the autonomy is granted to local government,we decided to do it”.
In a remark,the coordinator of Ndufu Ikwo Development Centre, Hon. Brutus Orogwu, and his Ikwo East counterpart, Hon. Emmanuel Ekuma, called on the benefiting communities to ensure judicious use of the fund as the money was not meant to be shared, but to execute projects, adding that a Committee has been set up to monitor the effective execution of the projects.
Present at the occasion were traditional rulers, town union presidents and other major stakeholders of Ikwo local government area.
