We Need More Funding To Achieve Our Mandate – Amgbare
PHILIP JEREMIAH EKE, YENAGOA
Prince Ebitimi Amgbare, Managing Director of the Niger Delta River Basin Development Authority has asked the Federal Government for more funding to enable the authority to achieve its mandate.
Speaking recently in Yenagoa during a media parley with Journalists on the achievements of President Bola Tinubu’s one year in office, he disclosed that an authority like that has only 2.5 billion naira yearly budget while other basins like the Sokoto Basin Authority has 50 billion naira.
Niger Delta Development Authority he disclosed is the grandfather of all basins but insisted that it is the most neglected because of bodies like Niger Delta Development Commission, the Presidential Amnesty Programme and the Ministry of Nigeria Delta Affairs.
Pleading with the Journalists to ascate the mandate of the authority, he said ” This is something we must come together to re-address. I will need the support of the media to re-write this story.
The Niger Delta Basin Development Authority predates even Independence, when the white men were here, they saw us as a Peculiar people and they thought it wise to give us this authority but it didn’t see the light of the day.
“It was actually supposed to solve our peculiar problems but those problems are still here. We still drink from the water where we go to defecate and it is our core mandate to make sure that solve this problem for our people.
“We are already taking a census of all the moribund water projects all over the place including Bayelsa State. We know the problems already, they give the people generators and ask communities to buy Diesel.
“It was due to fail from the very beginning. We will try to see how we can transition from Diesel to renewable energy.
“We also have the Agric components. We want to make sure that the Peremabiri Rice farm functions. On sanitation, we want to launch a campaign against open defecation.
“As we launch that campaign we must provide alternatives. So we are partnering with some partners so that when we eliminate open defecation, we will have an alternative for our people.
Speaking on the achievements of President Bola Tinubu, Amgbare who was the leader of the Tinubu Support Group during the last presidential election, affirmed that the president’s policies and programmes have had a positive impact on the economy.
He said the wage support, palliatives to communities, railways and the conversion of heavy-duty vehicles from the use of fossil fuels to compressed natural gas that the Federal Government was putting in place were all in the bid of price reduction.
He tasked state governors to check the activities of food vendors through the Consumer Protection Council in their states adding that that they should make sure that their Consumer Protection Council working.
He stated “From here to Itakpe is about N5,000 or N10,000. You can’t compare that to what you will pay if you have to go by road.
“And the most important is that state governors must also now become more responsible to their people by making sure that the market people, the traders don’t take their people for granted because the trader is always there for profit.
“If you don’t come up with measures to check them like Consumer Protection Council, make sure you have your Consumer Protection Council working.
Amgbare stated that with firm control, governments and local government councils, can help their citizens assuring that “in no distant time, these prices that are high will come down.
