Bauchi Distributes N150m Empowerment Items In Toro, Dass LGs

Segun Awofadeji

The Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed, has distributed empowerment packages amounting to N150 million to 1000 people in Toro and Dass Local Government Areas of the state.

THISDAY checks revealed that the items distributed included cash, goats, grinding machines, sewing machines, motorcycles, cars, among others.

The governor said on Saturday in Dass Local Government Area that he got a security report that some people are being cheated in the distribution of his empowerment items under the Kaura Economic Empowerment Programme (KEEP).

Mohammed said: “Before I came here, I got a security report that there are some murmurings, there are some complaints in the way and manner some of those items were distributed because some people feel cheated.”

According to him, the complaints have been noted and the government has taken action to address them.

He said that the beneficiaries of the empowerment programme are now owners of the items, be it cash or working tool and are not under obligation to share it with anybody.

“The KEEP is envisaged to help the people at the grass root that cut across all interest groups, political parties where the beneficiaries are just selected from the local government irrespective of their persuasion, some of them are NGOs, civil society groups and so on and so forth,” the governor said.

He informed that the empowerment programme followed the resolve of his administration to after fulfilling its campaign promises in the area of road construction, schools, hospitals and other infrastructures, embark on empowering the users of those infrastructures economically.

The governor, who has earlier in the day distributed similar empowerment items in Toro Local Government, said that “nothing is too much and nothing is too small, we are spending about N75 million in Dass Local Government.”

Mohammed expressed gratitude to the committee in charge of distribution of the items.

He assured the people of Dass that he would follow up on the road construction contract of Bayan Dutse Road that was awarded by the federal government.