Numoipre Wills, Executive Secretary, Border Communities Development Agency, on Monday said the agency had developed a three-year plan to cater for the needs of people living in the border communities.
Wills said this in Abuja on Monday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria.
He said that the plan was aimed at executing development projects covering between 2016 and 2018 in border communities across the country.
The executive secretary said the Federal Government established the agency following complaints of neglect by those living around the border communities.
He said that most of the communities lying along the boundaries between states were usually far from the state capitals and the local government areas and as such needed some interventions.
He added that the plan would assist the agency to strategise on the needs of these people thereby giving a new lease of life to them.
Wills said: “Though, there has not been funding with regards to implementation of projects in the communities but last the agency was provided with more funds.
“So with this, we came up with a three-year development plan. This is because we have envisaged the needs of these communities through what we call needs’ assessment.
“The plan is meant to concentrate on building of schools in 2016 while for 2017, we will concentrate on the provision of health facilities in the various border communities.”
Wills expressed concern about the agency’s present challenge of not having its own office while calling on the government to assist in providing one.
He said lack of space to accommodate staff had made it to spread its staff in offices at the federal secretariat, noting that the development was not good enough for the agency.
He said: “We are facing the challenge of not having our staff to work in the same building. We have been given a land but we need funding for the construction.
“We are appealing to the government through the Senate to help us so that we can have our building and also zonal offices to monitor all our projects.”
He, however, said that with the establishment of its zonal offices, there would be prompt access of staff to the monitoring and keeping in good shape the projects in border communities.
He also said that the agency would soon establish its zonal offices in Bayelsa, Borno, Ogun and Katsina States.
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