Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has dismissed speculations that it spent N18.9 billion on bush clearing and land preparation during the COVID-19 lockdown, saying the actual amount spent was N2.5 billion.
Gatekeepers News reports that the Ministry noted that the alleged report which emanated from the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts’ sitting, was misrepresented.
The Ministry’s Director of Information, Dr. Joel Oruche, in a statement on Wednesday, explained that: “The ministry only carried out bush clearing and land preparation of 3,200 hectares in eight states of Osun, Ekiti, Edo, Cross River, Kaduna, Kwara, Plateau and Ogun States as allocated by respective state governments at a total cost of N2.5 billion.
“In addition, other projects executed by the Ministry during the COVID-19 period that sums up to the total sum quoted included the following:
“Construction of rural roads in the six geo- political zones of the country, soil sampling and mapping, farmers’ registration as well as rehabilitation and the equipping of four National Soil laboratories in Umudike, Ibadan, Kaduna and FCT Abuja.”
The statement added that “All these projects were successfully executed and verified by relevant government agencies and were part of stimulus package under the Agriculture for Food and Jobs Programme of the federal government to generate employment and grow the economy to mitigate the effect of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.”
