We’ll unlock Bayelsa’s rural economy — Igali

TRACKING >>ABUJA— A leading governorship aspirants on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Bayelsa State, Godknows Igali, has said unlocking Bayelsa’s rural economy will be prioritised if he was elected.

Igali, who spoke with News men on his economic agenda for the state, said his economic plan would be tied to the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, which will be a benchmark to assess his development programmes and projects.

He said: “The rural economy is the bedrock of development and that is why you hear me talk about the issue of power. The main challenge of the rural economy is access to market and source of power to be able to galvanise the economy.

“Bayelsa is a gas hub, and the whole system of providing electricity, that is buying of diesel to power the generators or plants, meanwhile, there is gas flowing under, we are going to change that narrative.

“We are going to look for centres; we cannot be in every community, there must be centres where we can get generators, small mini turbines that can produce one to three megawatts to create industrial activities.

“I am going to embark on a massive housing programme, which is going to be one of my main focus but housing will not only be at the state capital.”

, we will do housing at the local government headquarters what we call G24, 24 development centres across the state, we will create housing for them so young people do not need to come to the state capital.

“It will be done on the owner acquired basis so that there will be a mortgage. We will speak to few mortgage institutions to be able to create a mortgage package where we can build houses all over the state so that in the rural areas there will be good modern housing estates where young people can go and live.