The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) on Wednesday met with the World Bank to review the bank engagements in the country and at sub-national level.
NGF Chairman and Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi disclosed this while addressing newsmen after the meeting that was held in Abuja.
Fayemi said that the World Bank had been a major partner of the forum in the development programmes of all the states.
He said that the governors at the meeting looked at its engagements with the bank, especially subsisting portfolios and reviewed things that they were doing right.
He said that the meeting also reviewed things the state governors needed to improve on and how they needed to accelerate deployment of resources available within the portfolio for states.
Fayemi said that the bank is spending somewhere in the region of $4 billion in states, in which some of the states were benefiting from a range of grants, loans on the basis of the bank’s investments in the states.
“So, it is important for us to work on that engagement both in terms of the lending operations, in terms of adversary activities, and in terms of the concrete action in our states,”he said.
Fayemi said that the bank had extensive discussions on how to improve on existing relationship and how to build on those projects that had transitioned from one governor to the other.
According to him, it is absolutely important that we treat government as a continuum and address whatever gaps existing without throwing the baby away with the bath water.
Fayemi described World Bank as a critical partner that the governors really needed to work with in order to improve quality of life and living conditions of Nigerians.
The World Bank Country Director in Nigeria, Rachid Benmessaoud said the bank’s mission in the country was to fight poverty and build prosperity.
(NAN)