The Federal Government has announced the release of ‘conditional grants’ to 148 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in order to improve investment at the grassroots level.
The senior special assistant to the President on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); Precious Gbeneol, who announced this in Abuja at a pre-implementation workshop for local government officials said the conditional grants scheme has availed the nation the opportunity of leveraging resources from all tiers of government in order to achieve socio-economic development of the rural areas.
She explained that the scheme is aimed at reducing poverty and providing even development of local government areas.
Ms Gbeneol warned the participants not to misuse the grants allocated to their local government areas.
Development partners from the Department for International Development (DFID) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) pledged their support for the programme.
The Akwa Ibom state Commissioner for economic development who declared the workshop open, stressed the need for local government authorities to positively affect the lives of their people.
The conditional grants scheme is an initiative of the federal government funded from the debt relief gains to enable states and local governments access funds to scale up specific projects in their localities.
