ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR OF KADUNA STATE ON A COURTESY VISIT ON THE HONOURABLE MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE ALH SAYYADI RUMA ON TUESDAY 14^TH AUGUST 2007

• The Honourable Minister for Agriculture & Water Resources Alh Sayyadi Ruma

• The Honourable Minister of State Alh Adamu Waziri

• Permanent Secretary and

• Directors

• My Colleagues

Good afternoon.

Honourable Minister, I am here to extend my sincere congratulations to your appointment. This appointment has surely been as a result of your stand on fairness, hard work, transparency and all that it takes and the contribution that you have been giving to this nation.

In addition to that, we in Kaduna State, I want to extend the assurances that we are going to cooperate in all the programmes that you plan to execute in the State.

In this regard, I am extending our sincere cooperation, particularly in some specific projects that you have already indicated the goodwill to assist Kaduna State. This includes the Gurara Water Transfer Project which we were extremely grateful for the irrigation scheme that you have agreed to establish in the State.

In addition to that, we are also extremely grateful for your acceptance to allow Kaduna State to utilize the power that is to be generated at the Gurara Water Transfer Scheme for the use of the industrial areas in Kaduna Metropolis.

Thank you very much Honourable Minister.

In this regard, I have visited the project twice. I have had an in-depth inspection, and I am glad to note the progress that has been achieved in that project.

So, for that reason and on the basis of our discussions with your experts and the Project Consultants, we have accepted to construct a sub-station near to the location of the industrial area in Kaduna State which will allow us to evacuate the power when it reaches Kaduna and distribute it to industrial area.

We have submitted a letter requesting for your clearance to appoint the same project consultants who are familiar with the project to design, to produce the engineering designs, supervise the construction and commission the sub-station. This is part of our contribution.

We are also grateful to Mr. President for his kind approval to assist Kaduna State in evacuating Excess Grains which has been discouraging our farmers in producing grains this year. With the information that Mr. President has graciously approved procurement of some of these grains, we have informed our farmers and they are diligently putting all efforts to procure grains in Kaduna State.

We thank you very much Honourable Minister.

Gentleman, I will like to state again that we are congratulating you and that we will put all hands on deck and will give all support that is required from Kaduna State.

We are very soon embarking on the preparation of the 2008 Budget and our Rolling Plan and in order to avoid likely duplications of programmes like in the area of water supply, the area of dams, we would appreciate having a meeting to discuss the plans of the ministry so that they go can in line and avoid duplications with what we are planning to do in the State.

I must not forget Honourable Minister also, to express our sincere appreciation for your acceptance for us to use over 30 As-Dams you have built in Kaduna so far for irrigation schemes. 34 schemes.

We have assigned consultants they have completed all the designs and four of the projects have been awarded and we are very soon going to award additional four contracts making a total of eight irrigation schemes, which we hope that by the end of this year we have completed and for next year we plan to add twelve more irrigation schemes

 We thank you very much Honourable Minister

Governor Arch Mohammed Namadi Sambo is a true democrat, whose approach to problems is always humane and conciliatory he is a man of peace who patiently looked to the future with courage and hope. His commitment in the direction of transforming the state into a relatively better integrated and functional polity is continuing  with a mission  to create a stable  and cohesive polity capable of securing effectively the interests of the various communities and giving them the opportunity to develop and live in peace  with one another.