NAN-AE-7
NEWMAP
By Emmanuel Acha
Enugu, Oct. 6, 2016 (NAN) The Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP) in Enugu State has been stalled by non-payment of counterpart funds by the state government, an official has said.
The NEWMAP Communication Specialist, Mr Benedict Agbo, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu on Thursday.
NEWMAP is a World Bank assisted project on erosion control involving the Federal Government and state governments.
Under the project, the bank mapped out 500 million dollars for projects in Nigeria over an eight-year period.
Agbo said that the project was stalled because the state government owed more than N500 million counterpart funds.
He said since the inception of the project four years ago, the state government had paid only N60 million meant for the development of work designs for two gully erosion sites.
He named the sites as the Ajali Water Works and the 9th Mile Corner gully erosion.
He said that the state had 50 gully erosion sites but that five priority sites were chosen for the project.
“The state government is supposed to pay a counterpart fund for the eight years of the project life totalling N750 million. We have yet to receive their counterpart fund.
“The backlog is N506 million. We understand that times are hard but chances are that certain projects that are more important to the life of the people should be given priority,” he said.
Agbo said that the last administration approved N150 million for NEWMAP but expressed regret that the money was not accessed at the time its tenure lapsed.
He, however, said that the current administration had sent delegations to the priority sites in the state to assess the extent of work done.
“After the assessment it approved N506 million as the 2016 counterpart fund and the backlog of other years’ arrears with a commitment that N53 million would be remitted for the project monthly.
“We strongly believe that the state government is still making plans considering the economic challenges in the country.
“Every state government has a financial challenge. It is our hope that government will implement what has been approved,” he said.
“The non-release of funds is affecting the work so much because there are categories of activities that we do in NEWMAP that are state counterpart fund specific and those activities are suffering.
“Currently, we have 13 states that have bought into the project and are eager to pay their counterpart funds upfront.
“More states are eager to come in and the World Bank does not look at us again due to the reluctance in paying our counterpart funds.
Meanwhile, the state Commissioner for Environment, Chief Fidel Ayogu, has said that the state government had not accessed any form of ecological funds for the devastating erosion sites.
Ayogu, however, said that NEWMAP was currently working on some of the erosion sites in the state.
He said that the agency had discovered additional erosion sites and that the state government was committed to working on them. (NAN)
EOA/EMO/JCE
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Edited by Ejike Obeta/Chukwudi Ekezie