EFO
By Ebere Agozie
Abuja, March15, 2017 (NAN) The Ecological Funds Office (EFO) in the Presidency says the Federal Government will no longer tolerate endless and protracted elongation of the tenure of contracts for projects designed to bring speedy relief to challenged communities.
Mrs Habiba Lawal, the Permanent Secretary of EFO, gave the assurance in her speech during an interactive session with newsmen on Thursday in Abuja.
“Government is concerned about the threats ecological problems pose to livelihoods, the ecosystem, social cohesion and our national development aspirations, most importantly economic activities of the communities that are affected.
“To speed up our projects, we carried out interactions with our contractors and consultants: to secure their understanding and support on non-compromise on the quality of specified works, value for money and timely delivery of projects.
Lawal said that EFO on the instruction of President Muhammadu Buhari carried out a comprehensive national survey of ecological zones, variations, scope and severity of sites across the country.
“The survey was aimed at providing the government with a holistic, pragmatic, and reliable source of information on ecological challenges in the country.
“It will also ensure an evidence-based and strategic projects selection and management process.’’
She said that the office visited about 2890 sites during the exercise carried out in three phases from August 2017 to December 2017.
She said that at “the inception of this administration in May 2015, 88 projects were awarded, 45 completed while 43 are still on-going and about 90 per cent are on soil erosion because of the prevalence.
She said that EFO was set up for the purpose of intervention for ecological issues and derived its funds from 2.32 per cent of ecology and derivation from the Federation Account on monthly bases.
“From this 2.32 per cent, the 36 states of the federation collectively get 0.72 per cent while the 774 local governments get 0.60 per cent and the federal government takes one per cent monthly.
“From the share of the federal government, 20 per cent is being utilised by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) for the work that it does.’’
She added that “ 0.8 per cent is the federal government share of ecology and derivation for which the Ecological Funds Office was set up to manage.’’
According to her, the fund is at the discretion and approval of Mr President himself through the Secretary to the Federal Government (SFG) of the Federation.
She called on the media to help in sensitising the public on the need to protect the interventions projects of the government in their communities.
“We recognise the crucial role of the mass media in mobilising our citizens to assume and entrench our collective and personal responsibilities: for proper use and maintenance of ecological intervention projects to ensure their durability and the saving of resources for other projects.
“We will like to benefit from your experience and observations about the approaches successfully employed elsewhere with the view of enriching and fine tuning our strategies.
“It will help us achieve more holistic, effective, sustainable, and community based ecological problem amelioration and interventions,’’ she said. (NAN)
EPA/BOLA/JCE
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Edited by Bola Akingbehin/Chukwudi Ekezie