Lawmakers in the Ogun State House of Assembly have challenged the State Project Monitoring Committee of the Rural Access and Agriculture Marketing Project (RAAMP) to ensure even spread rural road construction as well as durable road projects that would further aid rural development and address rural- urban migration.
This is just as they assured the Committee of all necessary legislative support at enhancing the productive capacity, rapid development of rural areas across the State and the improvement of the living standards of the grassroot people.
The above was the summation of lawmakers led by the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Olakunle Oluomo, during an engagement with the RAAMP Committee, led by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, Adetunji Kanimodo while visiting the lawmakers as part of the Stakeholders’ interaction at the State Assembly Complex, Oke- Mosan, Abeokuta.
Describing the proposed programmes of the Committee as being novel and progressive, Speaker Oluomo noted that the bane of the nation’s progress remained the absence of a legal framework for carrying out effective maintenance culture on infrastructural projects, including road networks that were put in place with government scarce resources.
He lauded the Committee for engaging the lawmakers who always had direct contact with the rural people in their respective domains; proposing a legislation that would create an agency for the sustenance of rural infrastructural projects and generation of funds for its sustenance to outlive generations.
According to the Speaker, the provision of improved and efficient rural transport infrastructure was necessary for socio economic development of the rural communities in the State and all hands must be on deck to achieve the success of the programme.
Earlier in his presentation, the Team lead, Kanimodo said the Committee’s engagement with the lawmakers was to intimate them of the lofty programmes of RAAMP, which was to develop selected rural roads and markets across the three Senatorial districts for improved socio-economic prosperity to local farmers, with a view to aiding their seamless accessibility from farmlands to end users.
Also, the Lead Infrastructure Engineer, Engr. Abdulazeez Buka-Gana added that nine rural markets had been identified at the preparatory stage of the project for the provision of access roads, sanitary facilities and water storage facilities owing to the State’s comparative advantage in three value chain crops including rice, cassava and maize.
Buka-Gana intimated the lawmakers that reforms were being put in place for holistic project monitoring by both members of the executive and legislative arms through a digital software that would aid the time-to-time supervision of constructions at its various stages, thereby enabling all key decision makers to have a real-time situation report in relation to the project cost.
In another development, Speaker Oluomo played host to the Zonal Director, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Mrs. Bolatito Janet in company of the management staff of Radio Nigeria’s Paramount Fm, Abeokuta led by its new General Manager, Mr. Adeyinka Akintola, with an assurance of giving the Corporation all necessary legislative support towards achieving its mandate of informing, educating and entertaining members of the public.
