The Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu on Thyursday said the Federal Government is planning a $10bn infrastructural rebirth investment programme in the Niger Delta.
Kachikwu said this in a press conference in Abuja.
The Minister said the funds will come from oil companies instead of the Federal Government.
He said, “We will be launching a $10bn infrastructural rebirth investment programme in the Niger Delta region.
“This is not money that is going to come necessarily from the Federal Government, it is money that is going to come from oil companies, investors, individuals who are ready to do infrastructural investment.
“What is most important is not the number of the fund; it is the conceptualisation of that funding. It is the fact that governors will have to come together as a regional block to begin to look at cross-state investments, whether they are roads, railways, whether they be town facilities or they be specialist hospitals.
“So, we are going to pool in energy and ensure we are looking at cross-border investments to strengthen the region.”
Kachikwu also said oil companies will be encouraged to work with indigenes of the region to ensure safety of their pipeline installations.
“The whole idea is that within that timeframe, we need to find work for the graduates because the greatest problem of the amnesty programme is that people finish through that programme and they begin to see it as a social connection point because they come out and there is nothing to do.
“So they are sucked back in into the same system from where you are trying to bring them out,” he said.
