By Vincent Ujumadu
AWKA — THE Senator representing Anambra Central Senatorial District, Chief Annie Okonkwo, has said  about N1 trillion would be required to curb the gully erosion menace in the state.
Okonkwo, who is the Vice-Chairman of the Senate Committee on Ecology and Environment, said, however, that the Federal Government has released N10 billion to fight erosion in the state.

He said he would ensure that some of the worst erosion sites in his senatorial zone, like those at Ojoto, Umuoji, Nnobi and Enugwu Ukwu, were in the current federal budget.

He also said that some stakeholders were planning to increase awareness on the problem of erosion by taking the matter outside the country to attract international attention.

The programme, he stated, was being packaged by some groups of people and corporate organisations to enable people understand the magnitude of the problem.

‘We can’t continue like this’

He said “right now, what we are doing on the erosion sites are palliative measures and it is because of those problems that I brought the Minister of Environment to the state recently.

“We cannot continue watching the buildings of the citizens of Anambra State being submerged. We cannot continue witnessing the lives of our people being terminated on daily basis by erosion. We cannot continue living like this forever, and that is why we want to tackle it headlong.” Okonkwo said.

He explained that he had not abandoned the idea of launching a N100 billion erosion fund which he announced earlier, adding, however, that the global launch being planned by these groups and organisations had become more important.