Cross River State Government’s failure to remit counterpart funding has cost farmers in the loan of N600 million Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises (LIFE) project.
The state government failed to pay its about N147 million counterpart fund to the project.
LIFE is a project of the Federal Government designed in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development and Niger Delta Development Commission.
The Project Coordinator in Cross River, Mr Innocent Ogbims, in Calabar on Tuesday said the failure by the state government was affecting the execution of the project which began in September 2020.
According to the Coordinator, while the project targeted 4,250 benefitting farmers in its six-year cycle, only 1,160 farmers have so far benefitted in the third year of execution of the project.
Ogbims said though Gov. Ben Ayade approved the first counterpart fund payment in 2022, no money had been released to the project.
“Non-payment of the yearly contribution of about N49 million by the state have impacted negatively on the implementation of the project that have impacted positively on a total of 1,160 beneficiaries since inception.
“It has affected the morale and motivation of those who are implementing the project. It has affected the procurement of some of the things the state would have provided for and even the hiring of support staff.
“In terms of logistics, we are lacking a lot; we have only two vehicles to cover the state and we have 13 staff members,’’ he stated.
Ogbims said 100 rural communities in 10 local government areas of the state were earmarked to benefit from the project.
The local government areas to include: Ogoja, Obudu, Obanliku and Yala in the Northern Senatorial district, Ikom, Obrubra and Yakurr in the Central district and Biase, Akamkpa and Akpabuyo in the Southern senatorial district.
He said the 10 rural communities were selected from each of the council areas to make up for the 100 communities that would benefit from the project, adding that
In his remarks, the supervising commissioner in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Mfom Bassey, said he was not in position to speak about the project since he started supervising the ministry only one month ago.
He added that the permanent secretary who would have responded was indisposed.
LIFE-ND promotes community-based on-farm and off-farm business activities along key agricultural value chains as a mechanism for job and wealth creation.
The project is being implemented in nine states in the Niger Delta. (NAN)
