The managing director of the North-East Development Commission (NEDC), Mohammed Akali, has said that insecurity is one of the major challenges hindering the activities of the interventionist agency in the North-East region.
Speaking on Tuesday at the official meeting with the representative of the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) at NEDC headquarters in Abuja, the managing director and chief executive officer of NEDC said the commission had been having challenges accessing some communities in the North-East due to continued activities of terrorists and this has hindered their activities.
Alkali also identified paucity of funds, higher number of out-of-school children, inflation, among others, as some of the challenges confronting the commission.
According to him, “There is a need for capacity building of the key personnel in NEDC and the states and local governments.
“We equally have some pockets of insecurity in the region implying that some areas may still not be accessible. The reintegration of surrendering insurgents could be an issue.
“While tackling the menace of out-of-school children is also a serious challenge as well as high inflation and floating of the Naira have affected implementation of the Masterplan.”
He revealed that the commission will not in anyway fail on its mandate to see massive resettlement, rehabilitation, integration and reconstruction of roads, and business premises of victims of insurgency and terrorism as well as tackling the menace of poverty, and illiteracy, amongst others.
While giving the overview of of NEDC’s mandate and masterplan, the managing director said the masterplan contains over 500 programmes and schemes that would promote and facilitate the physical and socio-economic development of the zone to be implemented in 10 years.
Meanwhile, the chairman of FAAC postmortem sub-committee, Kabir Muhammad Mashi, earlier said they were at the NEDC headquarters to see how they can support and collaborate with the commission to ensure more sustainable development in the North-East region.
According to Mashi, “we are here to work as partners in progress, we are here to see how we can support massive work you are doing, we here to monitor the progress so far, that is why we are here.”
