Gov. Seyi Makinde of Oyo State says the relaunch of the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project (RAAMP) in the state will assist its economic expansion through the development of the agriculture sector.

Makinde made this known on Wednesday during the relaunch of RAAMP and inauguration of the Oyo State Project Monitoring and Technical Steering Committee held at the Government House, Agodi, Ibadan.

He said RAAMP was important to the state, adding that it was the reason his administration provided the counterpart funding within two and half months of his administration.

The governor said that his government met RAAMP almost moribund simply because the state did not provide its counterpart funding.

“We provided the counterpart fund and this made us bring the project back on track in the state.”

Makinde, who is the chairman of the committee, promised that the committee would ensure that quality was maintained in all the road projects that would be constructed under the RAAMP in the state.

“We don’t want a situation like in the past when roads and critical infrastructure were constructed and the roads got bad before the administration ends its tenure,” he said.

The governor cited the ongoing rehabilitation of Ibadan-Eruwa road awarded by the immediate past administration, saying it had already gone bad.

According to him, the road has started having potholes on the completed section even as the project is still ongoing and charged the members of the committee to ensure that quality is maintained.

Makinde assured that other projects were in the offing apart from RAAMP, adding that the African Development Bank (AfDB) was in talks with the government on how the state could become one of its agro-processing centers.

He said that the bank would also support in strengthening infrastructure provisions toward the development of the state rural areas.

The RAAMP Project Coordinator in Oyo State, Dr. Yode-Moses Ayanlowo said the project was part of the present administration’s transformation agenda under the social responsibility initiatives.

Ayanlowo said that RAAMP was designed to promote profitable agricultural enterprises in the state.

He said the project was initiated at the instance of the immediate past administration in April 2016 with the scope of covering 500km rural roads to be constructed, rehabilitated, and maintained across 33 Local Governments (LGs) and 35 Local Community Development Areas (LCDAs) in the state.

He, however, said the scope had been expanded to 1,000km rural roads and the identification of agro logistic hubs intervention area across those LGs and LCDAs.

The coordinator disclosed that the counterpart fund of N350million had been released for the project by the Makinde led-administration.

He said that the state was “now credit-effective’’ with project volume between N75 billion to N89 billion.

He urged the governor to provide good office accommodation for RAAMP and ensure the release of the monthly running cost among others.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Mr. Jacob Ojekunle, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Dr. Debo Akande, the Executive Adviser to the governor on Agribusiness were among the members of the committee inaugurated.

NAN