The State Ministry of Women Affairs, Community and Social Development has proposed a budget of seven hundred and forty two million naira for the 2020 fiscal year.
The Commissioner in charge of the Ministry, Mrs Flora Alantan, disclosed this when she appeared before the Delta State House of Assembly Committee on Women Affairs and Housing to defend the proposals.
Mrs Alantan said the proposed estimates included regular and non regular overheads, as well as personnel cost.
She said the Ministry achieved seventy percent budget performance in the 2019 fiscal year which was an improvement on the previous year.
The Women Affairs Commissioner enumerated some projects completed by the Ministry in 2019 to include the Remand Home and Detention Centre in Sapele, Transit Home for Disabled Persons, Asaba and the Residential Accommodation for ex lepers at Eku.
She said the Children’s Home project in Asaba was seventy percent complete, the installation of solar street lights at the ex lepers settlement at Eku forty percent complete, while the building and equipping of a Nursery School in Asaba to which eighty million naira was allocated was sixty percent complete.
The Commissioner told the Committee that three hundred million naira was proposed for Women Empowerment Programme for rural women in 2020, saying that the programme was for women from the twenty five Local government areas of the state.
She noted that one hundred and twelve million naira was earmarked for the renovation of women development centres across the state, while thirty six million naira was proposed for the renovation and equipping of community development centres and twenty million naira for the completion of the Children’s Home in Asaba, among others.
The Women Affairs Commissioner highlighted the challenges facing the Ministry to include inadequate funding, lack of utility vehicles, delay in approval of memos and solicited the cooperation of the House Committee to enable it meet up with its mandate.
The Chairman, House Committee on Women Affairs and Housing, Honourable Ferguson Onwo, commended the Ministry’s budget performance for 2019 saying that the Committee would ensure that adequate budgetary provision was made for the Ministry to enable it implement its proposals for women and children.
Other members of the Committee who spoke including Honourables Innocent Anidi, Pat Ajudua, Asupa Forteta, Moses Anaughe and Peter Uviejitobor sought explanation to the Ministry’s proposed forty six million naira for the activities of persons with disabilities and noted that the one million naira proposed as grant to the National Council of Women Societies was inadequate.
The Permanent Secretary, Mrs Kevwe Agas, thanked the Committee for its cooperation and solicited partnership in order to build a Stronger Delta where the less privileged and vulnerable in the society would be adequately catered for.
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