NAN
The FADAMA III Second Additional Financing (AFII) Programme has called on beneficiary states in the North East Food Security and Livelihood Emergency Support Project to pay their counterpart funds.
Mr. Ibrahim Alkali, North East Desk Officer of FADAMA, who made the call in an interview, in Abuja, on Tuesday, said that the payment of the funds would facilitate the fulfilment of the programme.
He said that the World Bank, through the FADAMA programme, would not like to work with those states that were not meeting their financial obligations towards the programme.
“The requests are enormous and the needs at the community level are huge but the resources we have at the project level are limited.
“It is, therefore, a reasonable decision to work with those states that have paid their counterpart funds.
“We want to use this opportunity to thank those states that paid their counterpart funds so as to ensure that their farmers are able to fully benefit from the project,’’ he said.
Alkali said that the major challenge facing the project was the apathy of some states toward the payment of the counterpart funds.
He said that the payment of the counterpart funds was one of the prerequisites for the disbursement of project funds to beneficiary states, adding, however, that some states were still defaulting.
“The states are Bauchi, Adamawa and Gombe states; Bauchi State has paid its 2016 counterpart funds but it is defaulting with regard to the 2017 and 2018 payments.
“ Adamawa and Gombe states have not paid a penny since the inception of the project and this is really hindering the implementation of the project in the two states.
“Basically, the counterpart funds are used to fuel the cars, pay for allowances and other small expenses of the state project coordinator while managing the implementation of the project,’’ he said.
Alkali said that officials of the World Bank and the National FADAMA Office were now trying to pay advocacy visits to the affected states and influence their governments to defray the backlog of counterpart funds.
“We want to do that to make the state governments to realise that the payment of counterpart funds is the part of the project agreement which they signed; the states ought to contribute to support the World Bank and Federal Government.
“Once we do that and our efforts fail to yield the desired result, project funds disbursement in those states will stop,’’ he said.
Alkali, however, rated the performance of the FADAMA III (AFII) programme across the six participating states as high, saying that the programme had accomplished its set targets, particularly in those states which had fulfilled their contractual obligations.
“We are sending a clear message, which means that we may not be able to continue doing anything with those states that are not meeting their own counterpart fund obligation.
“We need to prioritise our activities that could not be funded so that the state counterpart funds will be used to fund them. Through that way, the project will be sustained thereafter,’’ he said.