Musa Na Allah Sokoto
The Transformation Irrigation Management in Nigeria (TRIMING) is the program of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources supported be the World Bank.
The Minister of Water Resources, Engineer Suleiman Adamu in his speech read by Engineer Esther Ronke Oluniyi, the Acting Director, Irrigation Department, said the ministry will hand over the operation and maintenance of irritation schemes to shareholders as part of effort to promote participatory irrigation management in the country.
He said the new transformation program was carefully designed to train and empower farmers and farming communities around TRIMING project schemes to assume ownership of the irrigation and drainage systems around their plots including financial and administrative accountability.
“I am sure you will bear witness that the training of farmers and Water Users Association’s (WUAs) have reached advanced stage of completion with a number of training modules, the development which the project brought to were it’s implementation will commence ” says the minister.
He said government would soon commence the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) system for the TRIMING Project irrigation schemes in Bakolori, Middle Rima, Kano River, Hadejia Valley and Dadin kowa Irrigation Schemes in accordance with the guidelines of the office of the Accountant Generation of the Federation.
The Minister further informed the stakeholders that the expectation of government from the beneficiary schemes can identify works needed for routine maintenance, repairs and minor rehabilitation requirements of irritation and drainage system now under their care.
He said the ministry was aware that farmers and staff in SRRBDA, HJRBDA, RBDA have started joint canal inspections to assess irrigation operation and management needs of their sectors and improvement thereof.
According to the minister when the new method commenced, the operation and maintenance cost would be kept at their lowest levels, so that such resources would be expended for other development purposes.
The new program minister said would mean more money in pockets of farmers and less hassles for RBDAs.
Speaker after speaker during the farmers training program supported the new TRIMING method including the national project coordinator of the program Engineer Peter Yakubu Manjuk
