As part of former President Umaru Yar’Adua’s Seven Point Agenda for economic revival and accelerated growth, the commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS) was launched. It was designed to provide concessionary funding to small farmers through credit guarantees and interest draw back support. Initial outlay for the scheme stands at a respectable $1.4 billion, to be disbursed through participating commercial banks.

In furtherance of his resolve to ensure 24-hour power supply in his state, particularly in the capital city, Calabar, Cross River State governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, has signed a pact with a Dubai-based fitm, Skipper Seil, to provide a 100kva solar lighting generating system.

ABUJA — THE House of Representatives Committee on Privatization and Commercialization, Sub-Committee on Steel, has called on the relevant stakeholders to form a review committee on the contentious modified agreement of the Federal Government with Global Infrastructure Nigeria Limited, GINL on the Nigerian Iron Ore Mining Company, NIOMCO, and Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited.

As the Federal Government expressed its desire to probe past acts of corruption, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami (SAN) to revisit the unresolved case of the missing $12.4 billion oil windfall between 1988 and 1993.

LOKOJA—A political pressure group, Kogi Democratic Forum, KDF, has attributed the lingering legal actions that have trailed the emergence of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State to those it identified as powerful external political forces outside the state.