FADAMA III: World Bank assures trainees hitch-free take-off grants

From: Laide Raheem, Abeokuta

The World Bank has assured women and youths who participated in the FADAMA III Additional Financing Graduate Unemployment Youths Scheme (FADAMA GUYS), that the process and eventual disbursement of take-off grants for eligible participants, would be free of any hitch.

The facilitator of the two-week training, equally assured that beneficiaries of the programme would be aided in case they run into technical hitches during take-off.

The World Bank Task Team leader for the project, Dr. Adetunji Oredipe, made these known at the weekend, while speaking with journalists, after working visits to the Tai Solarin University Of Education (TASUED), Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Odeda Farm Institute and the Federal University Of Agriculture, Abeokuta.

According to him, “The due process that made the selection of participants credible would be deployed all the way to the very end”.

Oredipe, a former aide to the president of the African Development Bank (ADB), Akinwunmi Adesina, therefore, warned against moral and financial indiscipline among the graduands.

“Even though the strongest element is awarding certificate in an environment like this, it is not ideally so for FADAMA projects.

Attitude and the passion to farm at commercial level are fundamental to us, therefore, maintain the passion for the World Bank to continue facilitating these kinds of projects”, he stated.

While calling on more youths to avail themselves of the opportunities of the agricultural projects, Oredipe, said “government is determined to address youth restiveness, ensure food security and earn foreign exchange for the country in the face of obvious letdown of our mono product economic practice”.

The Programme leader at the FUNNAB Center of Excellence in Agricultural Development and Sustainable Environment, Professor Caroline Afolami, charged the graduands to lead the industrialisation challenge of Nigeria, positing “the industrialised nations of the world put premium on agriculture before getting to where they are today”.

She, however, told the beneficiaries of the training to always defer to the university in case of any challenge on the job, just as the Ogun State Coordinator of FADAMA III, Mr. Olufemi Akinsola, expressed the readiness of the state government, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the national FADAMA Office, to lend helping hand always.

from The Sun News http://ift.tt/2vbb8ll
via IFTTT