Over nine million naira has been disbursed to farmers’ association in the three senatorial districts of Plateau for implementation of the Fadama III project.
Mr Gideon Dandam, Coordinator, Fadama III programme in the state, disclosed this on Friday in Jos in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
The coordinator, who described the implementation of the programme in the state as “successful,’’ said funds would soon be released for some of the beneficiaries.
He said that his office received an avalanche of applications from farmers’ groups, wishing to participate in the programme, promising that funds would soon be released to successful beneficiaries.
“We have everything ready, applicants have been screened and approved and we are only waiting for a few things to be done to disburse funds to the beneficiaries,”, he said.
He said that the State Government paid N40.2 million as its counterpart funding for the programme at the end of 2009.
Dandam said that chairmen of the 17 local government areas in the state had also paid their annual counterpart funding of N2 million each to participate in the programme.
Dandam enumerated some of the challenges facing the implementation of Fadama programme in the state as attempts by some elites to corner funds from getting to the reach of the target groups, whom he said, were the low income earners and peasant farmers.
He said that difficulties by communities to raise the minimum counterpart funding to access the loan were other challenges facing the implementation of Fadama III programme in the state.
(NAN)
