Cross River State Governor Ben Ayade has approved the release of N247 million to 100 farmers trained under the World Bank-supported Commercial Agriculture Development Project (CADP).
Mr. Ducham Amah, the project coordinator, made the disclosure in Calabar yesterday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
He said: “Each beneficiary gets between N2.4million and N2.5million and as I speak, all of them have received alert of this money as paid into their account.”
Amah said the money would be released to the farmers in tranches.
He disclosed that the government had approved N85 million to train another set of 600 people on Songhai farm.
“We forwarded the list of the 600 to the World Bank and to the governor, and two months ago he approved it.
“He not only approved the list, but also approved N85 million being the budget for the training of these 600 people on Songhai farm. They are to begin their training this month.
“Not only that, we have also sent a proposal to him for the empowerment of these 600 people and he has approved N1.5 billion to be spent on their empowerment.”
The project coordinator said the state would receive up to $26.34 million under the commercial agriculture programme.
He dismissed reports in the social media that the state was unable to access the funds.
“The state is not losing any money to the World Bank because the total portfolio of the state is $26.34 million.
“So we don’t have anything to worry about. The beneficiaries are happy and the state is happy.”
Amah said the government was making efforts to pay its counterpart fund contribution to allow for engagement of more youths.
Said he: “In addition, the governor is making arrangement to ensure the release of the state’s contribution, which is the counterpart fund to the project, so that we can take more youths.
“The project was supposed to end next month, but the World Bank has granted another extension so that we can train and empower these youths and women.
“The commercial agriculture programme is implemented in five states, namely Cross River, Kano, Kaduna, Enugu and Lagos.
“Cross River was selected because we have comparative advantage over other states in the three value chain, which is oil palm, cocoa and rice.
“We started in 2009 and expected to end in November 2014. It was further extended to enable the state utilise the funds that were meant for the programme.
“Cross River State ranks well among the five states in terms of performance.’’