Edo State Commissioner for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning and Development, Isoken Omo, has announced plans by the state government to decongest the Benin city centres.
She disclosed that the system that the government would adopt to achieve its plans was by creating a modern city, Coral City, around a suburb of the state capital, Benin City.
Making the disclosure during a joint media briefing, Ms Isoken said: “There is a lot of pressure in the city centre at the moment. A lot of indiscriminate development and issues are in the city. As part of the initiative to move the congestion from the city centre, government thought it wise to open up new areas around the bypass and other areas.
“in order to deal with the congestion, we start to develop new areas that will give people the opportunities to move without having to come to the city.”
On the state government’s response to the issue of palliatives to ease the hardship people are experiencing as a result of the removal of petroleum subsidy, the Commissioner for Communications and Orientation, Chris Nehikhare, disclosed that the state government had expended a huge amount of money to support the poorest of the poor and cushion the effect of the subsidy removal.
“We are still collecting data of the poorest of the poor from the 18 local government areas. These are all deliberate reasons to make sure those that are directly affected or most affected are those that receive the palliatives in terms of grains, rice when it is time to have them distributed or shared among our people.
“It’s going to be devoid of politics as usual. It is going to go directly to those who have been captured [in the register].
“We have a very effective data collecting system which was done in collaboration with the World Bank a couple of years ago. We are very sure of the authenticity of our data.
“What we are doing now is revalidating that data and updating it to include those that were initially not captured or were not among the bracket of the poorest of poor at that time.”
Nehikhare disclosed that since Monday, September 11when the free bus service commenced, about 1.5 million people had benefitted from it in Benin City.
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