Hydroelectric Power Producing Areas Development Commission (HYPPADEC) has handed over a block of three classrooms to the Tsaragi community in the Edu local government area of Kwara state.
The commissioning of the classrooms at the Tsaragi Unity Senior Secondary School was part of activities in the commission’s four-day working visit to Kwara state
Speaking during the handing over ceremony of the project, the chairman, governing council of the HYPPADEC, Mr Joseph Terfa Ityav, said that the classrooms project was aimed to aid the learning activities of the students.
Ityav, who assured that the commission would not deliver projects that fall below international best practices, said that the project was one of many projects being provided by the commission.
“Although we have handed the classrooms to the community through the Emir of Tsaragi, I assure you that we have also awarded the contract to supply furniture and books to the classes,” he said.
Amongst other things, HYPPADEC, within two years of its inauguration, has constructed schools, drainages, solar-powered street lights, conducted medical outreach and distributed motorcycles to aid the security network of the communities in Kwara state.
The HYPPADEC was established by an Act of the National Assembly to address ecological challenges in areas where operations of Hydroelectric Dams are sited.
Its focus covers six states of the federation which includes Benue, Kwara, Kebbi, Niger, Plateau and Kogi under which 56 local governments, 229 political wards and 1085 communities are being provided with critical projects.
Also speaking, the Emir of Tsaragi, Alhaji Aliyu Abdullahi Kpotwa thanked the agency for the facility, saying that the community was proud of the gesture.
Also commending HYPPADEC, the Principal of the School, Magaji Salihu Ahmed, commended the HYPPADEC, describing the intervention as timely even as he urged the commission to do more for them.
“It is marvellous and impressive. I want to thank HYPPADEC for extending this hand of friendship to us. There has been a shortage of classes but this is kind of a relief to us even though like Oliver Twist, we will still ask for more.
“This intervention couldn’t have come at any other time better than now. Most of all our classrooms have had their roofs blown away which has affected the learning activities of the students,” he said.
The classroom is part of the many critical interventions of HYPPADEC aimed at accelerating development across the six states under its purview.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the HYPPADEC governing council has reiterated the commitment of the body to keep up with its development plan.
Ityav said that the policy thrust of the commission includes education, agriculture, entrepreneurship, health, infrastructure and security.
“We are in Kwara state to inspect and verify some of the projects that are being done by the commission which are in line with our two to five years plan.”
The Chairman passed a vote of confidence on the management committee of the commission for the execution of some of the projects which he said bear direct impacts on the host communities even as he noted some grey areas.
“Kwara is the third state after Kebbi and Niger that we are visiting to assess the level of work done by the management committee. We give a vote of confidence to them because projects that have been shown on paper are actually existing and even though there are some projects that are not up to the standard that we expect, we believe they are the first of their kind and we are going to correct it.
“Noting that the visit also avails the agency an opportunity to interact with the people, he emphasized that the commission will consider some of the requests from communities in view of its budgetary allocation and capacity.
“We have received a lot of requests from communities and we will consider them under our development plan, budgetary allocation and capacity,” he said.
In his own remarks, the Managing Director of HYPPADEC, Alhaji Abubakar Yelwa revealed that the rationale behind the visit to all the communities is aimed at ascertaining the level of projects compliance with their design and specifications.
Yelwa expressed his delight that the “projects executed so far have met the aspirations of the communities and I assure you that the commission will not relent in its efforts to ensure that the right quality of projects is delivered”.
The working visit saw the members of the governing council and management staff of HYPPADEC paying courtesy visits to traditional rulers in Edu, Patigi and Moro local government areas of the state where projects are monitored and handed over to the host communities.
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