As part of measures to revive and reposition the thirty-two Rural Development Authorities (RDAs) in Bayelsa for effective service delivery, the State Government says it is considering using them as channels of rural project execution.
The Deputy Governor, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, stated this when the executives of the G-32 Principal Officers’ Forum paid him a courtesy call at his office in Government House, Yenagoa.
Senator Ewhrudjakpo lamented that the inadvertent decline of financial support to the RDAs began in twenty seventeen in the wake of the economic recession that engulfed the country.
The Deputy Governor noted that government was not unmindful of the present state of the RDAs, hence it was necessary to review their funding and operations to make them functional platforms for grassroots development.
To this end, he promised to send a proposal to the Governor for the approval of a monthly project fund for each of the RDAs to enable them carry out rural development projects on community by community basis within their areas.
On the request by the principal officers for an upward review of their monthly imprest, employment of security guards and procurement of office furniture, the Deputy Governor assured that government would look into the issues within the shortest time possible.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman of the G-32 Principal Officers’ Forum, Mr. Enai Gbologbegha, said the RDAs were currently bedevilled by a lot of operational challenges ranging from lack of conducive work environment, inadequate running cost to acute shortage of security guards.
While thanking government for approving the conduct and release of last year’s senior staff promotions by the Local Government Service Commission, Mr. Enai appealed to government to review their monthly overheads upwards.
In another development, Deputy Governor, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, has again urged Bayelsa State students at all levels of education to steer clear from criminal tendencies and take their studies seriously.
Senator Ewhrudjakpo gave the advice while granting audience to the leadership of the Association of Bayelsa State Law Students led by its President, Mr. Abonnema Marvelous, in his office in Yenagoa.
He identified greed as the major reason youths go into cybercrime, popularly known as “Yahoo Yahoo” in Nigeria, and stressed the need for Bayelsa students to avoid any behavior that would destroy their future, the image of their families and the state in general.
