A member of the House of Representatives, Mr Gideon Gwani, has sunk 72 boreholes to ensure clean water for rural communities in Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
Gwani, who conducted newsmen round some of the projects on Tuesday, said that the boreholes became necessary to minimise water-borne diseases that were common among the rural dwellers in the state.
“A healthy people are an asset to the nation and that is the essence of these projects,’’ Gwani said shortly after confirming that the projects were all functional and serving the communities.
He said that 50 more boreholes would soon be sunk in areas still in dire need of good water, adding that some people were still forced to rely on streams for drinking water.
Gwani also inspected the ongoing work electricity projects in Kukum Daji, Zakwa and Garaje communities and particularly, lauded the World Bank for accepting to execute the projects to enhance the rurual dwellers’ living standards.
He promised to work toward extendng the electricty project to Attakar, adding that efforts would also be made to encourage individuals and corporate bodies to take advantage of the power supply to establish cottage indutries.
“We expect such industries to open job opportunities and help to check unempoyment in the country,’’ he said.
Gwani said that he was also working toward the execution an irrigtion project in Madamai community, noting that the project would boost farming actvities in the dry season.
He said he had also constructed four classroom blocks in Government Secondary Schools in Bondong and Malagum.
He added that more classrooms were also built in Government Secondary School, Kadarko, for a better teaching and learning environment.
On youth empowerment, Gwani said he had trained 100 women and youths on some skills after which they were empowered to start off their busineses toward self reliance.
“In doing this, I tried to emulate the situation in the east and western parts of Nigeria where youths learn all manners of skills, including auto mechanic, tailoring, welding, fashion designing and hairdressing.
“The idea is to always get every hand engaged to minimise the temptation to get involved in all manners of criminal activities,’’ he said.
Gwani said that he had set up a committee to monitor the progress of the beneficiaries of the empowerment initiative to ensure that its purpose was being met.
On his activities in the House, Gwani said that he had sponsored nine bills that were at various stages in the National Assembly
“One of the bills is the FCT Water Board autonomy bill, it is focused on the need for an autoomy that will help the outfit to meet its massive mandate without waiting for clearance by the minister.
“We have discovered that the waterboard’s ability to attend to the growing population and attend to faults is usually slowed by the need for ministerial approval and we felt that such a bottleneck should be removed,’’ he said.
Gwani commended Gov. Ramallan Yero for completing projects initiated by the late governor of the state.
He noted particularly the Kagoro-Manchok as well as the Mabushi-Manchok roads which had eased movement in the southern part of the state.
The lawmaker urged people seeking political offices to promise only what they could deliver and cautioned against fake promises that were capable of entrenching distrust in the psyche of the voter.
