By Correspondent in Ilorin.
The leadership of the Community Development Council (CDC) in Kwara state has expressed the resolve of the organization to collaborate with relevant agencies, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in ensuring that government projects sited in communites are ” owned by the people, maintain, sustain by the people.”
CDC One Day Retreat in Offa.
The Chairman of CDC in the state, Mr Kayode Oyin-Zubair, gave the commitment in Offa, headquarters of Offa Local Governnent Area of the state on Saturday at One Day Retreat for Community Development Council (CDC) Leaders in the State.
Oyin-Zubair,who is also the Senior Special Assistance( SSA) to the Governor of the state on Community Intervention, stressed the need for stakeholders in community development to partner with the state government for the desired development.
He said the retreat was to appraise what the council had been doing so far,areas for improvement, elicit feed back from the people, criticise government,where necessary and accept criticism,where necessary, with a view to achieving the desired aims and objectives.
He said the council believed in the concept that the people,in particular environment or location, would determine the projects that would affect their lives,
The governor’s aide said that CDC programme next year would be focussing on ownership of government projects, maintenance of government projects and sustanance.
He said this is necessary so that “if you have done road here, you can be sure that you are not coming back to do road in another one or two years you go to another place, if you have done a cottage hospital here because the people are patronizing it, or may be they support the government in one area or the other, you are not doing hospital in that area again.
“You will be going to another place to provide solution to health problem.
“We are going to do a number of programmes and we would collaborate with relevant agencies, ministry and department of government, to ensure that particular area of a place with government projects is owned by the people, maintain by the people so that they can be sustanance.”
Contributing through the Commissioner for Information,Mrs Abosede Olaitan Buraimoh, the Governor of the state,Abdurrahman Abdulrazak, noted that his administration had continued to engage critical stakeholders in the development of thestate since he assumed office on May 29 2021.
“We recognise the roles that community Development Associations (CDAs) play in the development of their respective communities. For that reason, we have organised them into a governable structure, known as community development council (CDC), in every local government area with a central administrative team at the state level.
“We will continue to partner with these associations in our communities, to bring about rapid socio-economic change that we always pursue.
“We implore our community leaders to show more interest in security matters. “We urge them to birth and own various initiatives,to strengthen security in their neighbourhood.
“Our investment in human capital development and infrastructure will yield the desired results, everyone gets involved in our renewed efforts to secure lives and properties. As a government, we have never relaxed in our commitment to have a secured community, even as we pursue other developmental agenda.
“The TVS 3s (service, sales and spares) center in Offa is almost ready and will be commissioned soon.
“This is one of our community-driven investments that will add to the GDP of this commercial town and the state as a whole. We have similar investments in Araromipo, Irepodun local government area, and Igbaja in Ifelodun local government area.” the governor said.
Edited by Dada Ahmed.
