By Oyibo Salihu
Lokoja
Kogi state is set to benefit from the eight-year Strategic Investment Loan (SIL) of $508.59 million to ameliorate the effect of environmental degradation in the state.
The project, which was in collaboration with the International Development Association (IDA), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Trust Fund, and the Federal Government of Nigeria,
would be implemented by the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP).
Addressing the representatives of the World Bank and the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project at government house, Lokoja, yesterday, Governor Yahaya Bello said
environmental degradation and its challenges had been a serious problem in Kogi, adding that in the recent time the people of the state had been suffering as a result of environmental disaster.
He said: “It is a good thing now that the international donor agency and World Bank are coming together to assist us. This will go a long way in making impart in the lives of our people, especially the rural dwellers.
“I am very satisfied with the presentation of the agency and ours is to pay a token as part of counterpart funding. We will conduct them round the state so that they can see areas of challenges and how best they can attend to it.”
Earlier, the state project co-ordinator, Barrister Ladi Ahmed Jato, stated that the project started by the federal government in collaboration with World Bank and states government paying counterpart funding.
Jato, who said 26 states had been benefiting from the project since 2013, added that the objective of the project “is to reduce the vulnerability of erosion targeted areas in the country and reverse land degradation.”
According to her, “we have gone round the erosion sites in the state; the level of devastation in the state is alarming as many people are living with constant fear of menace of erosion.”
