OBAYANTOR – The House of Representatives Committee on Water resources has called for increased funding for the Benin Owena River Basin Development Authority (BORBDA) to enable it deliver on its mandate of meeting the food needs of the citizenry.

Chairman of the committee, Hon Aliyu Pategi made this call when he led other members of the committee on a tour of some agricultural and water projects executed by the authority in its operational area, including Edo State as part of its oversight functions.

Hon Pategi said the committee was in the headquarters of the authorithy to critically examine the projects approved for the agency in the 2016, 2017 fiscal years to ascertain the funding level, as well as actual releases.

He said the committee was satisfied with the quality of both the agricultural and water projects, which he said, was a product of the observed synergy between the Managing Director and his Executive Directors on the one hand and the Chairman of the Board of the authority on the other.

The projects inspected included the pilot Integrated Farm modeled after Songhai Farms Limited in Port-Novo which combined food crops, aqua-culture and livestock production at Obayantor; a Central Pivot Irrigation System in a 45,000 hectares prepared irrigable land at Ukpoke, Egor for dry season farming as well as some federal constituencies’ water projects executed by the agency.

Speaking on alleged threats by the Edo State Government to reclaim parts of the 8,000 square kilometres land allocated to the agency, Hon Pategi noted that the National Assembly has just passed a new water bill soon to be an Act which has taken care of the conflict areas between State Governments and the 12 River Basins across the country which will have states’ representatives appointed to the board of the authorities in a bid to reducing identified conflict areas.

Said he, “there are conflict areas, because the governor owns the land; they give the C of Os and they are bound to be interested on the utilization of the land; the new act will build the much needed synergy between the two levels of government, with a view to foisting the needed collaboration to boost food production in the country.

“This collaboration will forge a new collaboration; the host states will begin to feel a sense of ownership of the projects, we don’t want a situation whereby there will be no synergy between the federal agency and the state governments of the catchments areas they are supposed to help,” he noted.

Conducting the federal lawmakers round the projects, the Managing Director of BORBDA, Engr Saliu Osifuemhe Ahmed, said the agency was working in collaboration with the Edo State Government in training youths in new farming techniques deployed at the Obayantor Integrated Farm which it plans to replicate in as many communities that would be willing to embrace the model as a way of engaging idle productive population.

Engr Ahmed said the agency was on the verge of engaging about 150 Libya returnees to acquire special skills in the new farming technique, hoping that the agency would be able to bring into the scheme, as many youths as would be willing to key into the agricultural schemes of the authority.

He said that the agency is determined to delivering on its core mandate of employing new techniques to boosting food production, despite the lean resources at its disposal
He therefore appealed for more funding to enable it perform better.