Federal gov spent N2.7trn on agriculture & infrastructure – Lai Muhammad said

The Minister of information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Muhammad, has aforementioned that the federal government exhausted N2.7 trillion on agriculture and provision of different critical infrastructure in the 2017 budget. Mohammed disclosed this at a town hall Meeting in Dutse on Monday to spice up agriculture in the state particularly and also the country in general.

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The meeting had four ministers in attendance: Water Resources, Alhaji Suleiman Adamu, Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, Trade, Industry and Investment (state), Hajiya Aisha Abubakar and Information. He said that the government has been busy in rehabilitating and constructing rail lines to link all parts of the country with one another.

According to the minister, it is necessary to ensure transportion of perishable products like tomatoes, pineapples, onion among others to avoid wastage. In his remark, agriculture minister, Chief Ogbeh said that it was unfortunate that most of the perishable items get spoiled on the way due to vehicle breakdown or other reasons, hence the need for alternative transportation.

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Also speaking, the special assistant to the Central Bank Governor, Mr Olatunde Akande, said the apex bank had intervened to boost agricultural production with N107 billion from 2015 through the Federal Government Anchor Borrowers Scheme.

Akande explained that the loan by CBN to farmers was on a single digit interest. He said that the bank intervened on 15 different farm produce, sesame, rice, soya bean, cowpea, groundnuts, cassava, and poultry among others.

Our News source earlier reported that Mohammed said the federal government will increase power generation by 2,000 megawatts from the current 7,000mw to 9,000 megawatts by the end of 2018. Mohammed made this known when he appeared on a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja on Tuesday, November 6.

Going further, the minister said the FG will also embark on 90 power transmission projects nationwide in furtherance of raising the country’s power generation capacity.