A delegation of the Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development and Finance and Economic Planning alongside the World Bank has inspected multi-million naira agricultural produce processing plants built in different parts of Enugu State.
The projects executed under the Agro-Processing, Productivity Enhancement and Livelihoods Improvement Support (APPEALS) Projects worth over N350 million and located in 15 centres in 3 senatorial zones of the state.
The team visited a Poultry Processing Centre at Amechi Awkunanaw in Enugu South Local Government Area and a Rice Processing Centre in Nkanu East Local Government Area, Enugu State.
The National Project Coordinator of APPEALS Project, Mohammed Jobdi, who was part of the inspection team, said the mission in Enugu State was to assess the level of implementation in the state as the project will come to an end in September.
Jobdi, who said the APPEALS project started in 2017 explained that Enugu State ranks high among other participating states in terms of implementation, adding that more than 55,000 persons have benefited from the project across the country.
“I can categorically tell you that more than 55,000 beneficiaries have been supported to include farmers, producers, processors and marketers as well as youths and women whom they had empowered through capacity building.
“We have visited two centres in Amechi and Nara and what we saw is encouraging and they assured us that necessary machines will be installed within two weeks. “We have 15 aggregation and Cottage Centres with facilities that were proposed for Enugu State.
Under the women and youth empowerment programme, about 1,700 people had also been supported in each participating state in which five per cent of the physically challenged were trained because social inclusion is very important,” he said.
Earlier, the Enugu State APPEALS project Coordinator, Ihuoma Eze, while commending World Bank and FG for extending APPEALS project to Enugu State said the project had touched many lives in the state including in Amechi Awkunanaw, Nara, 9th Mile, Udi, Orba, Ezeagu, Adani, Eha Amufu and others where the aggregation centres are located.
Some of the beneficiaries, while thanking the World Bank and the Federal Government for the project, promised to maintain the centres and machines to ensure food security in Enugu State and Nigeria in general.
