February 03, (THEWILL) – As part of measures to revive and reposition the 32 Rural Development Authorities (RDAs) in Bayelsa for effective service delivery, the State Government says it is considering using them as channels of rural project execution.
The Deputy Governor, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, stated this when the G-32 Principal Officers’ Forum executives paid him a courtesy call in his office at the Government House, Yenagoa, on Thursday.
Senator Ewhrudjakpo, in a statement by his media aide, Mr Doubara Atasi, lamented that the inadvertent decline of financial support to the RDAs began as far back as 2017 in the wake of the economic recession that engulfed the country.
The Deputy Governor noted that the government was not unmindful of the present state of the RDAs, hence it was necessary to review their funding and operations to make them functional platforms for grassroots development.
To this end, he promised to send a proposal to the Governor for the approval of a monthly project fund for each of the RDAs to enable them to carry out rural development projects on the community by community basis within their areas.
On the request by the principal officers for an upward review of their monthly imprest, employment of security guards and procurement of office furniture, the Deputy Governor assured that the government would look into the issues within the shortest time possible.
His words, “We are very much conversant with the challenges of the RDAs. As far as I am concerned, the RDAs are struggling to breathe for survival. The competition for resources sometimes makes it difficult to meet demands.
“I am very sure the decline in support for the RDAs has been very much exacerbated by the recession that was witnessed between 2015 and 2018, and up to 2019, which we are trying to recover fully from now. This has affected the funding and running of the RDAs.
“We believe that the RDAs are machinery or channels we can use for executing rural development projects in our localities. If the RDAs are empowered to carry out an infrastructural project in a different community each month, we would achieve much with them.
“Your government will look into this and do something about it because it will help in spreading projects to all of our communities.”
Speaking earlier, the Chairman of the G-32 Principal Officers’ Forum, Mr Enai Gbologbegha, said the RDAs were currently bedevilled by a lot of operational challenges ranging from a lack of a conducive work environment, the inadequate running cost to an acute shortage of security guards.
While thanking the State Government for approving the conduct and release of the 2022 senior staff promotions by the Local Government Service Commission, Mr Enai appealed to the government to review their monthly overheads upwards.
In another development, the Deputy Governor, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, has again urged Bayelsa State students at all levels of education to steer clear of criminal tendencies and take their studies seriously.
Senator Ewhrudjakpo gave the advice on Thursday, while granting audience to the leadership of the Association of Bayelsa State Law Students led by its President, Mr Abonnema Marvelous, in his office in Yenagoa.
He identified greed as the major reason youths go into cybercrime, popularly known as “Yahoo Yahoo” in Nigeria, and stressed the need for Bayelsa students to avoid any behaviour that would destroy their future, the image of their families and the state in general.
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