joshuaRep Akiba creates 500 cooperatives, to train 5000 constituents
The lawmaker representing Calabar Municipality/Odukpani Federal Constituency of Cross River State in the Green Chamber of the National Assembly on the platform of Labour Party (LP), Rep Bassey Akiba, has established five hundred cooperatives to empower over five thousand members of his constituency.
Rep Akiba, who is seen to be working assiduously to give the best of representation to his constituents and bring the dividends of democracy to their doorsteps, made this known in an interview at his National Assembly office.
According to him, the agric-based cooperative programme was initiated in keeping with his vision to create economic structures within his constituency that will have lasting positive impact on the lives of his constituents.
Rep Akiba revealed that training for the beneficiaries has commenced in the different clusters for the cooperative scheme. He maintained that he will be focused and committed to creating economic opportunities for his constituents, as he believes Governor Bassey Edet Otu was already doing a lot across the state in infrastructural development.
Speaking on his journey so far as the mouthpiece of the people of Calabar Municipality/Odukpani Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, the grassroots politician, said: “When we assumed office last year, I set out to put in place economic structures across my constituency to alleviate poverty and uplift the lives of the constituents. As we speak, we have established no fewer than 500 cooperatives, designed to benefit five thousand of my constituents. We’ve registered them. We got them to open account with Bank of Agric. And they are currently on training.
“We are discussing with a number of development partners for support. Within the year, our plan is to support them to a tune of N125m. We have a target to access not less than N500m. So what is required is that we need to have about 25% of that. That is why we are targeting that revenue or capital base for them. Once we’ve achieved that, we will be able to access not less than N500m from some other institutional partners. That’s what we’ve been concentrating on since we came on board.”
Continuing, he added: “There are a few other projects that we are trying to use our office to bring to our people, like the solar street lights. We are targeting about 21 communities. We’ve done three at the moment. The street light installation project is ongoing.
“In terms of education, we’ve been looking at how to support our pupils in public primary schools, students in public secondary schools and tertiary institutions. Between now and September we should be able to roll that out. We will get the best from primary schools, junior secondary schools, senior secondary schools and tertiary institutions, and offer financial and material support to them.
“For health, we intend to enroll not less than a thousand of our people into the National Health Insurance Scheme. When we enroll them, two things will be achieved. One, we will be able to help the poor to access healthcare. But beyond that, we also want to use that channel to create awareness for the existence of such a scheme. Accessing healthcare requires a whole lot of money. So, if you have a little as fifteen thousand naira, for example, and you are able to use that to enroll into the National Health Insurance platform, you can access healthcare for about a year. But if you check what you will spend on your own without being an enrollee for one year, it may be about ten times that amount.
“Still on health, we are also looking at embarking on some medical outreach programmes. Within the year, we are going to roll that out. We are also going to roll out some medical equipment to support selected health facilities in my federal constituency.”
In the area of lawmaking, the federal legislator said he has sponsored bills that have reached different stages of passage on the floor of the House.
Some of the bills he has put forward, according to him, include Chartered Institute of Econometricians and Data Analysts Bill, a bill on the establishment of National Institute of Vocational and Technical Education in his local government, Odukpani, Cross River State, and a bill on the establishment of Institute of Health Service Administrators of Nigeria.
The astute parliamentarian who said he has been in constant communication with his constituents, via social media platforms and townhall meetings, disclosed that “We’ve done a number of motions that have actually affected our people. We have done a motion under matter of urgent public importance. We’ve done substantial motions.”
