By Demola Akinyemi

Hydro-Electric Power Producing Areas Commission (HYPPADEC) on Saturday expressed its commitment towards improving the standard of living of residents in the riverine communities in Kwara State by sinking motorised and hand-pump boreholes in providing adequate water for them.

The commission also said that it will train 980 Kwara youths in poultry and fish farming in one year.

Managing Director of HYPPADEC, Alh Abubakar Yelwa made these known in Ilorin, the state capital during a meeting with stakeholders from HYPPADEC’s host communities in the state.

Yelwa said the provision of boreholes is imperative to check the prevalence of water borne diseases in the riverine communities which had been of great concern to the commission.

He also said that the commission’s technical partners will also provide solar-powered
electric supply in the affected communities.

He said the training for the 980 youths will be done in collaboration with the National Directorate
of Employment (NDE, adding that the training would centre on poultry and fish farming,
furniture making and others.

He said,“The training will centre on poultry, fish farming, furniture
making etc. It is going to be about 55 trades for every youth to choose from.

“When the youths are under training we are going to support them with stipends. Graduates will receive N15,000 per month, diploma holders and others will receive N10,000 monthly. This will at least, help them to go to the training centres.

” Seventy percent of the beneficiaries will come from HYPADEC catchment
communities, 10 percent of the youths will be persons with disability, 30 percent women and the rest will be a fight for all. We want to make sure that the disabled and women are given adequate attention.The training is going to be between three and six months based on the
trade the benefiting youths have chosen.

“If the exercise is successful, we will train another batch of youths.
So that in every six months we will be able to graduate 490 youths from Kwara state that will be able to stand on their own. ” Yelwa stated.

In his remarks, Kwara State governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq
represented by Secretary to the state government (SSG), Prof Sha’aba Jibril said that “many of the HYPADEC communities are exposed to environmental degradation, flooding and continue to suffer untold
hardship since their livelihood is solely dependent on fishing and
farming. They are therefore vulnerable.

“It is my hope that the perennial problem of power supply, disaster
such as lead poisoning and erosion will soon be a thing of the past. We do acknowledge and owe lots of gratitude to our traditional institutions and other stakeholders within the HYPADEC states that have been passionate about this movement from inception till date.”