Bala hails World Bank over CSD projects

By Stanley Onyekwere

The minister of FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed has commended the effort of the World Bank towards uplifting the standard of living of the less-privileged residents of the Territory, pledging commitment of the administration to continue partnering with the organization and other credible donor organizations.

To this end, he said the FCT Administration recently set up the FCT Community and Social Development Projects,( CSDP) as a vehicle for partnering with the veritable world financial institution towards bringing more development to the doorstep of far-flung rural dwellers in the Territory.

The minister who spoke at the weekend, dismissed reports in the media over a purported threat from him, to disband the CSD Project over non-remittance of World bank’s contributory fund.

Instead, he described the CSDP as a well-conceived grassroots empowerment initiative whose rural development objective tallies with the Transformation Agenda of the President Goodluck Jonathan Administration.

“The FCT Administration under my watch will continue to support any programme or project in conformity with the Transformation Agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan because Mr. President sent me here to represent him.

“For the singular reason that the Project has been designed to sustainably increase access of poor people to social, natural resources and infrastructure services across the entire territory, the Administration will continue to support it,” he stressed.

The minister affirmed that the FCTA has already released its counterpart fund of N100 million and advised the Board to assiduously work towards getting the counterpart contribution from the World Bank to be released on record time to hit the ground running.

He therefore advised the newly inaugurated CSDP Board members to regard their duty as an onerous responsibility to uplift the standard of living of the less privileged in the society. He therefore urged them to always work with the fear of God.