- Reps Panel Advises River Basin Authorities on Agriculture
The House of Representatives Committee on Water Resources has called on the nation’s river basin development authorities to also focus on agriculture, as this will be in line with the efforts of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to diversify the nation’s economy.
The Chairman of the committee, Haman Pategi, said this while on a fact-finding mission and oversight function to the headquarters the Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority in Abeokuta on Thursday.
The committee also called on the management of the river basin authorities to develop aquaculture to boost food production and create employment for a lot of the teeming unemployed youths.
Pategi particularly noted that many of the river basin authorities had deviated from their mandate.
The committee also decried the alleged selective implementation of budget by the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and the management of the water basin authorities across the country, adding that this was against the provisions of the Public Procurement Act.
The committee said this should stop forthwith, describing it as a criminal act, adding that it would not hesitate to wield the big stick when and where necessary.
It, however, called for more budgetary allocations to the river basin authorities so as to allow them perform their core mandate of ensuring the diversification of the nation’s economy through agriculture.
Pategi commended the modern farming method created by the Ministry of Water Resources called Shongai Farming, saying, “It is a better way to empower the youth rather than the common distribution of tricycles and motorcycles by the government.
