Bauchi pays N500million for implementation of ACReSAL project

As the implementation of the World Bank’s funded Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) project began in Bauchi today (Friday), the National Coordinator of the project, Mr. Abdulhameed Umar said that Bauchi State was the first to pay the counterpart fund of N500 million.

Umar said this in Bauchi on Friday during the ongoing project launch and stakeholders’ engagement of the World Bank’s $700million to fight environmental and climatic disasters mostly caused by humans in the 19 northern states and FCT.

“We were deliberating on which of the states we should start from, when we approached some governors but Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed was the first person who showed commitment.

“Bauchi Governor Kaura was the first to pay the N500 million counterpart fund. Your friend, El-Rufai, just paid yesterday (Thursday),” he said.

“The sum of 700m USD is to be accessed by the 19 Northern states and FCT for the purposes of fighting issues surrounding desertification, drought, landscape degradation and deprivation at the level of communities and the land that we live in particularly in the North.”

“So, we are here in Bauchi with the World Bank team, the lenders of the resources, for the purposes of assessing and reviewing implementation strategies that has started over one year ago to see to the extent how much has actually been achieved and what are the areas if any for corrections where such is to be done,” he said.

Umar said that, “We chose Bauchi as one of the states of the federation and FCT to come over to see things for ourselves and I am happy to tell you that Bauchi falls under category B which are states that did not participate in the initial project but are leading the pack now.”