By Ugochukwu Alaribe & Eric Ugbor

Over 10 erosion ravaged communities in Abia State have been rescued by the state government through the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project, NEWMAP.

South East Voice gathered that some of the communities; Umuogele Umuakwu – Nsulu and Umuezeugwu in Isiala Ngwa North LGA and Umuda Isingwu and Umuagu in Umuahia North LGA, were cut off from the neighbours and buildings swept off as a result of gully erosion before NEWMAP came to their rescue.

Inspecting ongoing works on the various erosion sites at Amuda Isuochi, Umunneochi LGA and Amuzukwu Ibeku, Umuahia North LGA, erosion sites; Coordinator, NEWMAP, Abia State, Mr. Izuchukwu Onwughara, told South East Voice that there are over 400 erosion ravaged communities awaiting remediation by NEWMAP.

Onwughara said that the residents of the Umuda Isingwu and Umuagu communities in Umuahia North LGA had fled the area due to the huge gullies which ravaged their communities and only returned when NEWMAP had completed remediation works.

He expressed gratitude to Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu for providing the counterpart funding for the projects for communities in the state.

In his words, “We have over 400 communities with active gully erosion problems. The people come to us to complain and there are ones we identify by ourselves. We have a yardstick for measuring how active a gully is and the population of the people around the gully and those whose lives are being threatened by the gullies.

After rating all the gullies, we prepare a list and send to the state government. There is a steering and technical committee who meets over the list.

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They gave us a list of the most critical list of the sites to be remediated. Once sites are handed over to us, we send them to our engineering, design and supervision firm that prepares the design for the intervention.

The firm also supervises work. Now, we are on the list of prioritized sites sent by the government. When we are through with the list, we will move to the second one. So, anybody is free to report to us about gully erosion in his community.

“Expectation from the communities is our greatest challenge. Apart from expectation from communities, we have also challenges in some communities where we work. Sometimes, people are not cooperative; others are more interested in compensations than the work itself.

There are other communities where we work and the natives will tell you that they are more interested in the work than the compensation.

“NEWMAP in Abia commends Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu. Before the he came to office in 2015, Abia was rated the worst performing NEWMAP project management unit. Among the 7 states that started NEWMAP, Abia was the worst as at 2015/16. Gov. Ikpeazu took it upon himself to provide counterpart fund, leadership and motivation and this changed our operation. In August 2019, an assessment was done on the performance of NEWMAP in various states, Abia came first.

We have transformational projects we have carried out across the state. It would have been difficult if Gov. Ikpeazu had not provided the enabling environment, counterpart funding, leadership and motivation.

The NEWMAP Coordinator further disclosed that the World Bank also gives grants to cooperative societies in the communities where it is carrying out erosion remediation works to reduce abject poverty.

Commissioner for Environment, Abia State, Dr. Solomon Ogunji, said the project is fully sponsored by the Abia state government with loan from the World Bank which it has repaid about N750 million.

He said, “The project is fully sponsored by the Abia state government. World Bank releases funds that we will repay. It is a loan which will be repaid by the government, so we can say that it is a project funded 100% by Abia. There are other instances that they give us grants in the area of funding cooperative societies in various communities where they have projects. Then you pay counterpart funding, you also pay compensations, staff welfare, employment and payment of salaries of the NEWMAP staff.

“If you fail to pay counterpart fund, it won’t work. We were supposed to pay N1 billion, but we have paid N750 million, leaving a balance of N250 million which we must also pay.

“The only advantage is that you pay over a long time. The federal government guarantees this loan from World Bank and deduct at source when they start.

“We will repay the loan, this is why we must ensure that the project is given a professional touch. It won’t be in our interest for the project to be derailed, poorly executed or not done since we must repay the loan. Abia is sponsoring the projects; anybody giving you contrary information is deceiving you.”

Vanguard News Nigeria.