The governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, on Friday said his administration has spent over $150 million in addressing erosion problems which, according to him, has degraded the environment and threatened the lives and livelihoods of inhabitants.
The governor made the disclosure at the launching of Edo FEWMA, formerly known as Edo NEWMAP.
He attributed most of the environmental challenges to poor land management and decrease in forest areas.
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He equally blamed contractors for not disclosing their plans to address erosion problems and hinted that federal agencies, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) will not be allowed to work in Edo “if they do not share their plans with the state government particularly erosion plans, because they are giving us more trouble to our environment.”
“Over the last 10 years, we have spent over 150 million dollars trying to repair what we have damaged ourselves.
“Majority of the cases are all man-made. You have a contractor, who was given a contract, he decides to begin construction, he doesn’t share the plan, he doesn’t tell how the water will be terminated.
“So, as a government, we will insist, going forward, that no agency, not federal, not local, will undertake projects without coming to register with FEWMA because you just can’t come to the state to say you have a contract, you begin to work and not letting us know the extent of engineering drawings and you are going to deal with issues of erosion control”, he said.
He added: “As you know in Edo State, over the years, due to neglect, we are now witnessing many challenges that we didn’t see before, particularly gully erosion.
“Our number one priority is our environment because we cannot continue to behave the way we are behaving now. If our forefathers had behaved this way, we will not be living here. We can hardly see trees and this means the land cannot hold water if there are no trees.
“So, the environment is a very serious area of focus which we must pay attention to and it is because we have not being paying attention to the environment that is why we have the challenges we have today,” he added.
The governor, while assuring the new agency of the state government’s support, explained that NEWMAP was conceived as a world Bank project to help state government with environmental sustainability and erosion control.
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Earlier in his welcome address, the Executive Officer of Edo FEWMA, Dr. Tom Obaseki, said a total of 23 states participated under NEWMAP in the last 10 years and Edo came top in achievements, accounting for 17 per cent of the overall success.
“This came to pass by true, conscious deliberate and passionate demonstration of strong will by his Excellency, Godwin Obaseki, particularly in efficient project implementation, procurement done without zero interference, demonstration of commitment to NEWMAP through prompt payment counterparts funding by the governor as well as demonstration of ownership of project.”