Area councils tasked on social amenities

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Bala Mohammed, has urged the chairmen of the area councils that benefited from the Federal Government’s solar electrification projects to complement such efforts by providing social amenities to the communities.

Speaking at the commissioning of solar electrification projects in Durumi, Shape and Wura communities in the FCT Monday, Senator Mohammed said: “I charge the area council administrations to leverage these facilities by providing complementary social amenities such as cottage industries, entrepreneurship development centres and water boreholes to the various communities.”

He stated that such complementary effort will go a long way to economically empower their youths and women and also accelerate economic development in the communities, just as he reiterated his continued support for the Operation Light-up Rural Nigeria (ORLN) initiative of the Federal Ministry of Power that executed the projects.

Mohammed maintained that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and, indeed, the entire country, are endowed with huge renewable energy resources.

He canvassed for more Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangements that will harness alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, hydro and biomass potentials of the country which, he said, “are cheaper and readily available.”

He stated that land allocation in the area councils have been stalled for about 15 years but has now been revived following the conception of adequate mechanisms to check chaos, racketeering, uncontrolled development and the need to ensure efficient data management through the Accelerated Area Councils and Sectional Title Re-Issuance Scheme (AACSTRIS).

Meanwhile, the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, during the projects commissioning in Durumi community of Bwari Area Council, disclosed that the Kogi State Government has already keyed into the OLRN programme, adding that the project would commence shortly in the state.