By Nsan Ndoma-Neji, Calabar
Fourteen months after the destruction and looting of property that brought the Cross River Basin Development Authority, CRBDA, down to its knees, its management has begun the construction of ultra modern fish pond, vegetables, and mushrooms farming.
Sequel to this, the CRBDA has set aside the sum of N200 million for take off of it’s fish pond.
Speaking during a facility tour and project assessment by journalists from the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Cross River State Council of the Nigerina Union of Journalists, NUJ, accompanied by CRBDA management team, at its headquarters in Calabar yesterday, the Public Relations Officer, Mr Jackson John, stated that with the fish pond, a lot would be achieved by the the authority.
Jackson stated that though plans were already on ground, the #EndSARS protest managed to disrupt and vandalize most of the projects they embarked upon.
Explaining further, the PRO said, “You wont see the scar, because there is improvement; what we have now is far better than what we had before the #EndSARS protest.
“All the green houses were destroyed and all our birds taken away (looted), but as we speak now, we have stocked them.
“Before the #EndSARS, we had about 5,000 birds, that’s exactly the number we had, but now, we have capacity for about 10,000, both broilers and layers.
“Before the protest, we were working on a drip irrigation system, but the protest disrupted the entire activity and most of the things (facilities) were vandalized, but we are still bringing them back, so, soon our irrigation system will be back.”
Among the projects enumerated by the CRBDA PRO were: anti open defecation facilities in Calabar, Ogoja, Yala and Obubra; a gate house for the CRBDA headquarters, Calabar; administrative block for the CRBDA; and Nursery Primary and Secondary school.
Others include: construction of canteen and transport officers office, construction of ICT Hall and rehabilitation of the water production factory; construction of earth and concrete fish ponds; mushrooms farms; reconstruction of green and fruit farms, amongst others.
