Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello yesterday made a strong case to World Bank for increase in the length of road intervention in the state under the Rural Access and Mobility Project (RAMP) Phase two.
The governor made the call when he played host to World Bank project monitoring team in his office in Minna.
Governor Sani Bello appealed to the global apex bank to increase from 500 kilometres to 1,000 kilometres in view of the state being the largest in land mass and the with highest road network in the country.
He argued that it will be unfair for a state that is not up to a third of Niger State to benefit equal length of road intervention under the RAMP 2 scheme.
The governor regretted that many farm produce annually perish in many rural areas of the state due to lack of accessible roads hence the need for an increase in the length of feeder roads to be constructed by the World Bank under RAMP 2 scheme.
He then assured the bank of the state commitment to continue with all counterpart funding programmes as he pledged the state readiness to honour all counterpart funding payment as soon as her financial status increase.
" Counterpart funding is key to this relationship, we will honour it as long as we have the resources", he said.
He added that this was even the right time now that the state needs support of development and donor agencies as their services were for the well being of the people.
The governor then applauded the bank's past efforts at providing quality rural roads to most villages. This he said has assisted farmers in evacuating farm produce, thereby boosting the socio-economy of the rural dwellers.
Earlier leader of the delegation, Mr. Tesfa Michael Mitaku said that their main function of RAMP 2 is to provide basic amenities needed by the people in the rural areas.
He pleaded for the continued payment of counterpart fund and called on government to take over the maintenance of the roads that the bank delivered.
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