By Enaibo Asiayei
The Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, has reaffirmed its commitment to ensure the sustenance of projects executed by the Commission, in the Niger Delta region for the benefit of the people through a community-based management template.
This was stated by the Acting Managing Director of the commission, Prof. Nelson Brambaifa, during a meeting of the Commission’s Focal Task Team (FTT) with delegates of the European Union Niger Delta Support Programme (EU-NDSP), at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt.
The NDDC Chief Executive Officer, who was represented by the Director, Community and Rural Development, CRD, Dr Solomon Ita, commended the EU-backed initiative, stating that the Commission would adopt the community-based management approach to ensure the maintenance of other projects in the region.
He said: “I want to commend this team that has been handling the capacity building of our communities and promoting synergy towards the implementation of Niger Delta pilot project scheme.”
Dr Ita remarked that recently, the Focal Task team had a meeting, which produced an estimated cost of rehabilitating 45 selected water projects across the nine mandate states of the NDDC.
According to him, the NDDC and the European Union would continue to build community-based management that would properly take care of the projects even when the parties had moved to face other areas of intervention.
He added: “We are hoping that this template will be used by the commission and other agencies in implementing and managing some of the abandoned projects we have in the region.”
In her remarks, the Leader of the European Union delegation, Cecil Collins, said that the purpose of the meeting was to review and evaluate the results and the impact of the various interventions, as well as understand the extent they had met the demands of the people, noting that such appraisals would enable the EU do things differently in the future to contribute to the prosperity of the nation and the Niger Delta region.
She said that it was very important to have a feedback on the extent to which the EU’s intervention had complimented efforts made by the Commission in providing portable drinking water in the region.
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