NEWS
Gov. Otu Unveils N30bn Commercial Agric Development Fund – Commissioner
The Cross River Government on Saturday announced plans to unveil a N30 billion commercial agric development fund that would enable farmers to have access to loan as part of efforts to ensure food sufficiency and boost agriculture in the state.
The state Commissioner for Agriculture and Irrigation Development, Mr Johnson Ebokpo, and his counterpart of the Information, Mr Erasmus Ekpang, jointly announced this in Calabar.
Ebokpo said the fund which would be provided and guaranteed by the state government, would be warehoused by a consortium of banks.
He said the fund was meant to move farmers from subsistence farming to commercial farming and at the same time boost agricultural value chain in the state.
Ebokpo said that the project would focus on boosting maize, cassava, aquaculture and rice farming and also to ensure all- year-round farming in the state.
He said the reason for the government intervention was to address the difficulty encountered by farmers in accessing loan facilities.
“We have for instance flour mills in Calabar which had to rely on maize supply of about N60 billion annually from Kano, Kaduna and other states from the North.
“Cross River has about 1.8 million hectares of arable land suitable for all sorts of agricultural purposes but does not have the fund to cultivate much maize to feed the flour mill here.
“What the government of Prnce Bassey Otu is trying to do is to commit this fund with the consortium of banks where farmers can have access to it for six years.
“Principally, the fund is coming from the state government but the banks and international development partners can bridge the gap when they see the commitment of the government,” he said.
Simirlarly, the information commissioner said that the state would soon launch the Code River State -Wide Irrigation Infrastructure Development Project (SWIID).
Ekpang said that the aim was to promote all-year-round agricultural production and also to attract investments in the cassava sub sector.
To actualise this, he said that the state had developed a Cassava Value Chain Development Policy framework to public private partnerships.
“The governor had embarked on an aggressive drive to reduce fiscal wastage and subsidise productivity in a manner that would foster long-term prosperity.
“The government had made tremendous roads into the agricultural sector. This administration had commenced soil survey and fertility mapping of Cross River State.
” The government has also embarked on aggresive elevation of the state oil palm production status with the development of 3.5 million oil palm seedling nurseries in 13 designated locations across the state,” he said.
The commissioner also said the administration had equally commenced the Home Stead Farming Project to mitigate food insecurity and resultant high cost.(NAN)
NEWS
Customs Intercept Contraband Worth N510.92m in Two Conths
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Federal Operations Unit Zone C, says it intercepted contrabands with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N510.92 million between July 15th and September 15th, 2024.The zone covers the six states in the South-South geopolitical zone and the five states in the Southeast geopolitical zone.
This is contained in a statement signed by Jerry Attah, Public Relations Officer, NCS, Zone C, and made available to journalists on Wednesday. According to the statement, Comptroller Michael Ugbagu, NCS, Zone C, gave the statistics while showcasing the seized contraband to relevant regulatory agencies at the Government Warehouse in Edo.Ugbagu said that the zone also recovered the sum of N25.57 million from demand notices raised based on some infractions noticed, making a cumulative sum of N536.49 million recorded within the months under review.“The DPV was derived from our seized goods, which include 49,699 sachets of various brands of tramadol and 3,350 bottles of various cough syrups with codeine without an NAFDAC number.“1,015 sacks of dry donkey meat and skin, 75 jumbo bales of second-hand clothing, 463 cartons of foreign spaghetti, 269 pieces of used pneumatic tires, and 56 cartons of smuggled foreign tomato paste.“More worrisome is the interception of 49,699 sachets of various brands of tramadol and 3,350 bottles of various cough syrups with codeine without NAFDAC registration numbers.”He noted that the cough syrup with codeine and tramadol without NAFDAC registration numbers, if not intercepted, could have had adverse effects on youths.He added that the items were mostly intercepted along the Ewu-Okada/Benin expressways based on credible intelligence. (NAN)NEWS
APC Forum Decries Deplorable Condition of Federal Roads
The Forum of Stakeholders of the All Progressive Congress (APC) has decried the deplorable condition of some federal roads in Nigeria. Alhaji Saleh Zazzaga, the North-Central Chairman of the forum, said this in an interaction with newsmen on Wednesday in Jos. Zazzaga described some of the federal roads as ”death traps”, particularly those within the north-central region.
He said that some of the deplorable roads in the region include Jos-Akwanga, Makurdi-Oturkpo-Otukpa, Makurdi-Ankpa, and Jos-Saminaka. Other roads that needed urgent attention, he said, included Suleja-Minna, Ejule-Otukpa, Ganawuri-Manchok, Lokoja-Abuja, Lapai-Agaie-Bida, Birnin-Gwari-Bokani-Mokwa, Minna-Zungeru-Tegina-Kontagora. ”Currently, the north-central region has the most deplorable roads and highways in the country. ”These deplorable roads have brought severe hardship on the people and lost lives and property through preventable road traffic crashes. ”We call on President Bola Tinubu to intervene and ensure the rehabilitation of these roads because good roads are vital enablers of development,” he said. The chairman also called on governors of states within the region to reconstruct the dilapidated roads and seek refunds from the federal government. ”Though these are largely federal roads, they are located within states, and the beneficiaries are the people of these states. ”So we call on state governments to reconstruct these roads and seek refunds from the federal government,” he added. (NANNEWS
Yuan Strengthens 7. 087 Against Dollar
The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, strengthened 160 pips to 7.087 against the dollar on Wednesday.This is according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.In China’s spot foreigners exchange market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by two per cent from the central parity rate each trading day.
The central parity rate of the yuan against the dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day. (Xinhua/NAN)