By Chukwuemeka Opara

The Ebonyi Government says it has paid off its N300 million counterpart fund to the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s (IFAD) assisted Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) from 2023.

The Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mrs Nkechinyere Iyioku, disclosed this in Abakaliki during a pre-mission stakeholders’ meeting on VDCP project performance evaluation.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the exercise was conducted by IFAD’s Independent Evaluation Office.

Iyioku said that the government released N100 million for the counterpart fund in 2023 and N200 million in 2024.

“The counterpart fund for 2025 will be released soon as the state government is happy with the performance of IFAD–VCDP in the state.

“IFAD–VCDP has greatly contributed in enhancing agriculture in the state and the state government is always ready to collaborate with it,” she said.

The commissioner expressed optimism that the evaluation team would rate Ebonyi first among the other states earmarked for the evaluation, which includes Nasarawa and Niger.

“We are not competing with anyone but we have done enough to deserve the top spot,” she said.

She appealed to IFAD–VCDP to extend its operations in the state to 13 local government areas, instead of the current eight.

“Stakeholders from the remaining five LGAs have been clamouring for inclusion in IFAD’s operations and we can’t keep assuring them,” she said.

The leader of the IFAD pre-mission team, Usman Damata, said the evaluators operated independently to ascertain if IFAD had achieved its objectives or not.

Damata said that evaluators’ reports were not disclosed to anyone, except the IFAD board itself.

“We at the National Office are happy that they chose Ebonyi for evaluation because we know the good things the state is doing.

“We are optimistic that they will have good assessment to make on Ebonyi.

“The report on Ebonyi will have effect on what is happening in the South-East zone, especially Anambra and Enugu, and also on Nigeria as a whole,” he said.

The state’s IFAD-VCDP Programme Manager, Mr Sunday Ituma, said the meeting was to share with stakeholders and farmers the responses provided for the questions they would be asked during the evaluation.

“This will enable them take a cue from the responses because whatever they answer is what the evaluators will take.

“All we seek is fair assessment and criticism and not what is not true about us,” he said.

NAN reports that goodwill messages were delivered at the event by the state’s Ministry of Finance, House of Assembly Committee on Agriculture, as well as agro dealers, among others. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Edited by Mark Longyen