From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
MINISTER of Water Resources, Mr. Sulaiman Adamu, has warned that unnecessary bureaucratic bottlenecks would not be tolerated in the process of commercialising the country’s River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs) in line with the RBDAs Act of 1987 and commercialisation framework approved by the National Council on Privatisation (NCP).
Speaking when the Acting Director General of Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Dr. Vincent Onome Akpotaire, who led other management staff of the bureau on a courtesy call on him, the Minister welcomed the BPE’s strategy to reform the RBDAs and urged it to keep pace with the Ministry’s drive to speedily bring about change in the sector.
According to him, if the country’s RBDAs were working in line with the objectives for setting them up, government would have had no need to set up intervention agencies like Sure-P and the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), among others.
He said the Ministry, in consultation with key stakeholders, including BPE, would immediately set up a working group for the actualisation of the commercialisation programme which he said had become imperative.
Earlier, the Acting Director General of the BPE, Dr. Akpotaire had informed the Minister that restructuring the RBDAs was a necessary condition for the realisation of the Federal Government’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda and ensuring food security for the nation.
He gave the opportunities in the RBDAs as follows: irrigation potential of over 3.14 million ha out of which only about 100,000 is developed; potential for large/small scale hydro-electric power generating station that are largely untapped; abundant surface as well as ground water resources estimated to be over 250 billion cubic meters yet to be exploited; fishery development, food storage and processing, and tourism and water sports.
Similarly, he informed the Minister that restructuring and commercialising the RBDAs would boost the economy in several ways, including revenue generation, creation of direct and indirect jobs, alleviation of poverty, generation of electricity and promoting diversification of the rural economy, among others.