The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved three foreign loans totalling $945m meant to improve irrigation system; prevent flooding in Ibadan, Oyo State; and provide water for Bauchi, Ekiti and Rivers states.
The council also approved four different road projects totalling N22bn at the meeting presided over by Vice President Namadi Sambo.
President Goodluck Jonathan was away in Burkina Faso on a peace mission alongside two other African leaders.
Ministers of Special Duties, Taminu Turaki; State, Finance, Bashir Yuguda; Water Resources, Sarah Ochekpe; Agriculture and Rural Development, Akinwunmi Adesina; and Niger Delta Affairs, Stephen Oru briefed State House correspondents at the end of the meeting.
Yuguda said the first of the five memoranda presented to the council by his ministry for approval was the one on the International Development Association’s credit of $495m for proposed irrigation management.
He said the idea behind the facility was to upscale what the Federal Government had been doing in improving the irrigation system to ensure year-round farming season in the country.
“Part of the fund under this IDA credit is to upscale the cultivation of the irrigatable land in the country. Currently, we have an estimated 2.2 million hectares of potentially irrigatable land in the country out of which about 1million hectares is situated in the Northern part,” he said.
Yuguda also said the council approved $200m loan to arrest the frequent flooding being witnessed in Ibadan, Oyo State.
He explained, “We have all been witnessing the floods that have happened in Ibadan, the first one was in 1980 and the second one in 2011.
“Some remedial works were carried out to avert the future occurrence of flooding in the city but we believe, with this credit facility of $200m, we will be able to arrest the frequent flooding within the Ibadan city.
“The idea is to work with the Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Agriculture in order to arrest the situation.”
The minister also disclosed that the council approved another $250m for the proposed third national urban water sector reform project.
He explained that the Federal Government would take the facility and then lend it to Bauchi, Ekiti and Rivers states.
He said the project would be implemented over a period of six years and that its components included water sector governance, institutional frame work and human capital development, sector wide improvement and project management at the federal level and sector reforms on water.
He added that the facility would address the increasing demand on water in the affected states.
Shedding more light on the foreign loan for irrigation, Ochekpe said 50,000 hectares of land would be improved for cultivation over a period of seven years.
She said, “In each of the irrigation scheme, we expect that 550 multiple, secondary and tertiary level water users’ associations will be strengthened with different capacity and skills in managing water resources for improvement in their agricultural activities.
“About 140 farming families at the average of 12 persons per family will be involved in this project. We expect that the villages within the catchment areas of the project will also benefit from a cross range of activities that will be undertaken in the cause of implementing this project.
“We expect that over 10 million people will benefit from the flood emergency information system and flood forecasting tools that will be developed within the three hydrological basins where the projects are sited.
“One major benefit of the project that we expect is the increase in the income of the households that will be participating. We expected that their incomes will rise from N259,000 annually to N781,000, about three times more than that of farmers operating within non-project area.
“The project was approved by the World Bank Board in June 2014 and it is to be effective within this month.”
