Taraba state Governor, Arc. Darius Dickson Ishaku has tasked the leaders of the Rescue Watch to work committedly with a view to meeting the basic and immediate needs of the people at the grassroots.
Governor Darius Ishaku said this yesterday at the Exco Chamber of Government House during the maiden meeting of the of the Grassroots Watch and Revenue mobilisation team after carefully listening to their reports bothering on successes and challenges faced while interacting with their respective communities.
He told them that they were carefully selected and pointed out that he expects the team to constantly liaise with their respective communities with a view to understanding how best government can come to their rescue.
The Governor charged them to ensure that they establish a cordial relationship with their people by regularly visiting them. He however, lamented that some of them have not been visiting their people and encouraged them to continuously visit their people.
Darius Ishaku used the opportunity to inform the Rescue Watch Team that he is aware that the country is passing through one of its difficult moments, where people find it extremely difficult to meet their daily needs particularly, people at the rural areas.
The Governor revealed that some Ministries would soon be drafted into the operations of the Rescue Mission to enhance its effectiveness and explained that, such Ministries would be saddled with the responsibility of taking stock of challenges of the people of rural areas with a view to ameliorating their suffering.
Speaking on the issue of local government salaries, the Governor mentioned that Taraba state Micro Finance Bank has been contacted to assist so that the salary issue will be resolved in its totality and explained that the screening exercise of local Government Council workers was done in good faith with the sole purpose of fishing out ghost workers and the money realised will be used to fund developmental projects.
He said attention will be given to revolutionise the Agricultural sub-sector, most especially, boosting Cocoa and rice farming so that farmers in Taraba can take advantage and go into large-scale cocoa and rice farming to expand their business horizon.
Governor Darius Ishaku also reaffirmed his determination to complete Kona-Lau road to ease the hardship motorists face in getting to their respective destination, and to the people of Karim Lamido. Governor Darius Ishaku pleaded for an understanding, saying that, modalities are being worked out with a view to finding a lasting solution to the problem of road in the area.
He thanked all the members of the Rescue Watch and Revenue mobilisation teams for the wonderful efforts made in reaching most of the community and reiterated his Rescue Mission resolve to address some of the challenges uncovered during their first outing, particularly, the border crisis between Yorro and Zing local government areas.
Earlier, the Coordinator of the Rescue Mission who is also the Chief of staff Government House, Rebo Usman commended both teams for the wonderful work, but however said, there is still room for improvement in order to adequately capture the wonderful innovation of the Rescue Captain, Arc. Darius Ishaku which is the first of its kind in the country, positing that the purpose is to actually work in line with his vision and mission of giving the people at the grassroots sense of belonging and encouraged them to brace up for more challenges.
Rebo Usman maintained that the meeting was meant to achieve two major things which include appraisal of commitment and the progress made so far and to assess our understanding of the Rescue Mission of his Excellency, with a view to improving on what we are to be doing at the grassroots so that we will be more prepared and focused.
The meeting afforded the various teams from all the 16 local government councils the opportunity to present reports from their various communities bothering on lack of roads, water, poor health facilities, poor educational facilities, insecurity and poor Agricultural facilities that will boost production in the state and also commended Corps members for the wonderful communities services embarked upon by them.