Our Reporter
Managing Director of Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) Bashorun Askia Ogieh has said the agency is poised for greater accomplishments in the New Year despite challenges facing oil producing communities.
Ogieh, in his New Year’s message, said DESOPADEC’s focus, as a major plank of the Stronger Delta mantra, ‘will be on the tangibles and intangibles, in providing for the needs of our people and meeting development aspirations of the communities that form the oil producing areas of the state’.
He said: “We will be fully involved in the provision of health care facilities, educational and infrastructural development as well as socio-economic welfare of our people, throughout the year and in the coming years.
“We intend to ensure that every facet of the wellbeing of our mandate areas are captured and executed, in keeping with the development objectives of the Delta State government.
“These lofty projects earmarked for the year will be a mirage in the absence of peace and security. I am, therefore, pleading with our traditional rulers, youths and community leaders to continue to maintain peace in their domains. We can only thrive and fast-track development in an atmosphere of peace.”
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The DESOPADEC chief added that the commission had committed itself to effecting a new approach in discharging its responsibilities, saying ‘our Bottom-Up approach will be sustained as regular consultations and liaison with community leaders. Youths and women groups will be the primary strategy in choosing the nature of projects to be executed in our communities’.
“We have decided that communities must own and protect projects in their areas. In effect, it behoves on the community leaders to report shoddy jobs by our contractors to us for sanctions and possible determination,” he said.
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