The World Bank has supported the Cross River Government with relief material to cushion the effects on the destruction of properties during the #EndSars protest in Calabar on Oct. 23 and 24 2020.
The State Commissioner for International Development Cooperation (MIDC), Dr Inyang Asibong, said this after distributing the donated items to the different units in Calabar.
Asibong recalled that after the destruction, the state government through his Ministry had approached the World Bank to render support to the state, especially in the delivery units of the World Bank Assisted Programme COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (CARES).
The items donated include furniture, 20-seater conference chairs, air conditioners and inverters, laptop computers and printers, virtual meeting equipment, hybrid inverter with solar among others.
Asibong lauded the World Bank for the gesture, saying that the distribution was coming at the first day of resumption of duties in the year.
She explained that two result areas of the Ministry, FADAMA and Enterprise Development Funding (EDF) were badly affected during the protest and all the items were destroyed by hoodlums.
According to her, the items will go a long way to enable the staff of the result areas to get back to work in preparation for the CARES programme.
The commissioner said: “The CARES is COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus of the government. It is going to be a state owned project and Gov. Ben Ayade is so committed about improving the lives of residents in the state.
“We know that the poverty index in Nigeria is 40.1 per cent and this is really high. Cross River is lower than the national average, 36.3 per cent, we want to further reduce that our percentage to at least a single digit.
“I want to thank the World Bank for coming to our aid at this point in time and we can assure them we will make the best use of these equipment,” she said.
Mr Fidel Udie, the Acting General Manager of Community and Social Development Agency (CSDA), said that the donation confirmed the good working relationship between the state government and the World Bank.
Udie said that the donation would put the state in a good position to participate in the CARES programme.
“This programme is basically meant to target the poor and vulnerable in the society. Gov. Ayade was able to follow up with the World Bank and here we have these equipment to help the delivery units to be ready for this programme,” he said.
He listed the platforms benefiting from the equipment to include; CSDA, the state coordinating unit, FADAMA, EDF, Smart City, Public Work Fare and the state Cash Transfer Unit.
