By Bassey Inyang / Correspondent, Calabar
Cross River State Governor, Liyel Imoke, has said that the involvement of communities in the execution of contracts within their domain will prolong the lives of the projects when they are completed. Imoke said this in Calabar when he hosted members of the Management and Board of the Cross River State Basin Development Authority (BDA), led by its Chairman, Mike Nku, who paid him a courtesy call.
Imoke said that host communities do not get ownership of project after commissioning because of the way they were designed without their full participation.
“If you make sure they have the basic capacity to ownership and conceiving maintenance, it will achieve its objective of serving the people,” Imoke said.
On agriculture, the governor observed that the current posture of the authority should be reviewed with the full participation of the private sector.
“The right partnership will go a long way because the private sector has the capacity and resources to create the necessary impact”, he said.
The governor remarked that though the role of the BDA cannot be over emphasized, it is important that the state partners with it to serve the people, even as it is currently collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to ensure that water is provided to some communities in the state.
Imoke, who commended the Board for its commitment to improving service delivery, said he was pleased that the state has a fair share of its projects and appealed that the projects be completed within the tenure of the present administration because some of the projects are over 20 years old.
Nku said the BDA in the state is saddled with the responsibility of constructing dams, irrigation, boreholes and tackling flood and water menace under its water resources scheme in different parts of Akwa Ibom and Cross River states.
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