By Francis Igata

ENUGU—Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State has commended President Goodluck Jonathan and the World Bank on their efforts at controlling erosion menace in the South-East region.

The governor spoke through his Deputy, Rev. Raphael Ifeanyichukwu Nwoye, in an address during the launch of the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project, NEWMAP, at Michael Okpala Square in Enugu.

Governor Chime said all efforts by the state and local governments as well as constituencies to control gully erosion before now had not yielded the desired result because of improper road designs, inadequate drainage systems and poor solid waste management in urban and semi-urban areas.

Others, he said, “are destructive and unsustainable land use practices that remove protective vegetation cover, over grazing, deforestation, cultivation of marginal lands and uncontrolled mining for building materials and climate change challenges.”

The governor regretted that the erosion had damaged infrastructural projects such as roads, highways, reservoirs, pipeline networks and natural assets like productive farms and forests.

Noting that Enugu State had the highest number of erosion sites in Nigeria while Anambra State had the worst erosion sites, he, however, expressed confidence that NEWMAP and the World Bank would help the state in tackling the menace as done in China, Brazil and Israel.

Earlier, Project coordinator of NEWMAP in Enugu, Mr. Simeon Nwankwo, expressed delight that as one of the South Eastern states where erosion challenges led to the birth of NEWMAP, the state had embraced the project promptly.

Nwankwo said Enugu State had fulfilled the first condition given by the World Bank for the state to participate by paying the required initial counterpart fund of N60,000,000 in 2013.