By: Felix Ikpotor
The Rivers State Government has trained officers handling the State’s Community Action Resilience Economic Stimulus (RIV-CARES) programme on ways to ensure that the programme impacts maximally on the targeted beneficiaries which includes the poor and vulnerable in the state.
RIV-CARES which is a Federal, State governments and other development partners funded programme is aimed at ameliorating the sufferings posed by the economic hardships in the country on the poor masses.
Speaking during a three-day capacity building workshop organised for accountants, internal auditors and procurement officers working on the programme, the State Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Professor Peter Medee said the programme is not only targeted at alleviating poverty but to also enhance food security and sustainable livelihoods of people of the state.
He noted that the programme is one of those initiatives being pursued by Governor Siminalayi Fubara to reach out to the poor and vulnerable in the state.
“This programme is one in which the governor is using to reach out to the vulnerable poor in terms of impacting on their livelihoods, food security and growth of small business.
” So if you look at the livelihoods of people through direct cash transfer as well as public works and the agricultural sector where we are expected to provide some farm implements and seedlings as well as market enhancement and to create access to our farmlands so that our produce can be transported from the farms to not just your villages but also the city centres,” he said.
Medee noted that while the various economic policies introduced by the Federal Government was impacting negatively on the people, the government is also finding a way of ameliorating their sufferings through the programme.
“You are aware of the harsh economic situation occasioned by the several reforms of federal government. Those reforms are biting very hard on our people. In as much as they are biting, government is also concerned and interested in what they can do to be able to minimize that suffering and you are the people that are being entrusted to ensure that what needs to be delivered is delivered,” Medee stated.
The budget commissioner under whose office the programme is domiciled, charged the officers to take the trainning seriously and not to allow the programme suffer any setback.
“This programme must not fail. Every aspect of this program in terms of ensuring that the actual targeted beneficiaries are those reached with the actual amount and time. It is your responsibility to support your team heads, coordinating units and the steering committee to make sure that this programme is delivered.
“So whatever goods and services that would be procured at that level, you will receive the trainning for it and you will also be trained to be watchdogs over this programme to ensure that whatever is approved is actually delivered to the targeted vulnerable people.
“I can assure you that if you do well and take this training and your assignment seriously, we shall have been able to reduce the number of people who go to bed hungry everyday,” he admonished.
On his part, the Director Audit/ Coordinating Director, Office of the Auditor-General, Rivers State, Dr Christian Yorkina Barisua, while commending the Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara for giving desk officers of the programme a free-hand to run them, emphasized that the trainning is imperative to ensure that the officers incharge deliver on schedule by making sure targeted beneficiaries receive their monies as at when due and that all funds are equitably accounted for.
“The essence is to complement the efforts of the Executive Governor Siminalayi Fubara who has been magnanimous enough to give the desk officers a free-hand to operate the programme to ensure that the vulnerable in our society and the respective villages are reached for assistance and bring them out from their divers incapabilities.
“This is because we care. We know that other state governors hijack programmes like this and dictates how the funds should be directed but our state governor is magnanimous enough to allow the operators to spread the tentacles of this funds to the actual targeted beneficiaries, the vulnerable to ensure that their targeted programmes are achieved objectively through the operators of the programme.
“So we felt that the only way the office of the Auditor-General can contribute to this programme is to ensure that square pegs are in square holes, round pegs in round holes and that implies that critical officers of this programme have to be appropriately guided technically on their respective assignments to ensure that their stock in trade is delivered,” he added.
While charging the officers to take the trainning seriously, Yorkina warned that if after the trainning, lapses are still observed in the reports of the direct link indicators, he won’t hesitate to issue them queries.
“My charge is that they should embrace this programme and take it seriously, adding; “I’m doing this because as an auditor, if I see any lapse in what they are doing especially what they have learnt here which they are supposed to exhibit in the field, I will raise queries to them so they have to take this training seriously and practicalise it,” he advised.
Earlier, the Technical Head, State Cares Coordination Units (SCCU), Mrs Imaonyani Ephraim-George in a welcome address explained that the programme which initially started as a COVID-19 corrective mechanism has now transited and restructured to stem down the effects of fuel subsidy removal and other economic hardships on the people.
She explained further that the essence of the trainning is also to build synergy between accountants, internal auditors and procurement officers working on the various delivery platforms domiciled in the different ministries and agencies in the state.
Mrs Ephraim-George expressed the hope that the trainning would equip and reposition the personnel for effective service delivery.
“At the end of this programme it is expected that participants must have been well vested with procurement process, accounting process and also internal auditing within the delivery platforms and to see that each one of them know what to do while working on the files, believing that after this trainning, if there are any grey areas in the course of carrying out their job we will have them corrected,” she added.
Our correspondent reports that the workshop had resource persons such as Dr Parry Saro Benson, Paul Obele Nwogo and Eliom Iyo who took the participants through different technical presentations.
