THE South-West Project Coordinator of Fadama III, Mr Razak Salawu has attributed the slow implementation of the project in the region to the inability of some states to pay the required counterpart fund.Salawu told the News Agency of Nigeria, in Ijebu-Ode on Monday, that without the required counterpart fund, the project would not be implemented as fast as it should.One of the problems facing the implementation of Fadama III project is from the government itself. Some states and local governments have not been able to pay the required counterpart fund for the implementation of the project.Though the project is on course right now, each state differs in the process of implementation because of the delay in payment of the counterpart fund by states and local governments.The World Bank, in giving out the project, stated that each state has to pay a certain amount as a counterpart fund for the implementation of the projects.Some states and local governments in the South-West, however, have not be able to meet that expectation and that is why some states are moving faster than the others Salawu said.He appealed to the affected states and local governments to assist in the implementation of the project by paying up the required counterpart fund.Salawu also lamented the inability of Fadama Community User Group to meet up with the part payment of the project cost.He said the Fadama project was always ready to implement any project as requested by the registered user group in the community.According to him, for any project to be executed on the request of a user group, it would pay a certain percentage of the project cost, while the Fadama initiative would pay the rest.The coordinator said some communities have not been meeting up with the payment requirement, adding that over $8 million drawn from the World Bank had already been spent on the Fadama III project in the South-West states.The Project targets the rural poor (Farmers, pastoralists, fisher folks, traders, processors, hunters, gatherers as well as other economic interest groups), disadvantaged groups (widows, the handicapped, the unemployed youth, among others).Fadama is a Hausa name for irrigable land, usually low-lying plains underlay by shallow aquifer found along Nigerias major river systems The terminology vary from place to place: SW-Akuro, SE-Efam, Ani-Nmri, Ani-Uro, among others.The development objective of Fadama IIIproject is to increase the incomes of users of rural land and water resources on a sustainable basis.
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