Enugu state Governor pledges to sustain World Bank/FG APPEALS Project

Gov. Peter Mbah of Enugu State has pledged his administration’s commitment to sustain World Bank/Federal Government Agro-Processing, Productivity Enhancement and Livelihoods Improvement Support (APPEALS), Project in the state.

Mbah made the pledge when the World Bank, FG, and APPEALS teams paid him a courtesy visit at Government House, Enugu state.

The governor said it was not by accident that they chose Enugu as one of the six states they decided to visit.

Mbah, who expressed gratitude and appreciation to the teams on how they managed the project, said his administration would build on it to improve agriculture and help small medium businesses in the state to grow.

“Your Country Director wrote me and promises to release $3 million for the state to support agriculture and we are going to utilize the money effectively when released.We are going to provide farm lands, build access roads to farmers and sustain the project as it is one of the things in our manifesto,” he said.

Mbah assured them that his administration was going to migrate from crude way of farming to modern agriculture.

He added that he was going to establish special allied processing zone to boost production.

The World Bank Task Team Leader, Dr Manieve Sene, earlier, noted that in spite of the initial challenges facing the project in the country, it was able to record huge successes.

National Project Coordinator, APPEALS Project, Mr Mohammed Jobdi while addressing newsmen after the visit, said their mission was to access the level of implementation in different participating states which Enugu State was one of them.

Jobdi said the World Bank/ FG support project was being implemented in six states namely; Cross-River, Enugu, Kaduna, Kano, Kogi and Lagos States.

“This is the 10th mission and the project is already coming to closure on Sept. 30, adding that we have been adjudged by our general overall performance of doing well in all the participating states”.

He explained that the project started in 2017 with the five components of building capacity for farmers, Women and Youth Employment Progeamme, infrastructure development for agric business, knowledge sharing and project management and coordination.

“Under the women and youth empowerment program, about 1,700 people had also been supported in each participating state in which five per cent of the physically challenged were trained because social inclusion is very important.We have 15 Cottage and aggregation centres being established in these states,” he said.

NAN / Foluke Ibitomi