By Ebiowei Lawal 
Gov. Seriake Dickson YENAGOA- The Governor of Bayelsa State Seriake Dickson has reaffirmed his commitment to invest in massive medium and low cost housing in 2018 to make accommodation affordable for many homeless people and squatters in the state. Dickson made the pledge while addressing newsmen during his January 2018 Transparency Briefing in Yenagoa. According to statistics, about 46.3 per cent of households in Bayelsa reside in owner-occupier dwellings; approximately 19.1 per cent live in rented apartments, while 34.6 per cent of the population is made up of citizens who are most likely squatting, homeless or living in homes without paying. To reverse the trend, Dickson said he has concluded plans to build medium and low cost houses that would be situated on a 1000 plot of land at Agbura in Yenagoa LGA by the end of 2018. Explaining further, Dickson said his restoration government intends to build a new Yenagoa City that would serve as the new Florida of Nigeria. According to him, the Island across the Epie Creek would serve as the pilot of the New Yenagoa City project and government would stop at nothing to ensure that land owners follow the master plan of the New Yenagoa City. “Very soon we would complete the construction of road across the Island, and this would make easy for land developers to move materials to their sites.” He added. To tackle the issue of wide spread poverty in the state, Dickson said he has earmarked N2bn for women and youth corporative cutting across all the communities in the state. He said the fund would be supervised by the state owned Izon-Ibe Microfinance Bank and would be given out as grant to all duly registered corporative that willing to start small businesses in 2018. This he said would enable government take significant number of the population of the state above poverty line and tackle the issues of unemployment and youth restiveness that has plagued the state for so long. To ensure sustainability of the program, he said government would convert the state owned Bayelsa State College of Arts and Science to an entrepreneurship and vocational training institute that would train women and youths that are willing to start small businesses in state. |
