Community dev: AMAC sets up fund raising and management committee
Chairman of Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Abdullahi Adamu Candido, has inaugurated committees for the 12 wards of the area councils, tagged Community Development Committees.
Candido while inaugurating the committees cautioned the members not to pilfer or mismanage funds meant for the development of communities.
He told them that they have been mandated to seek funds from corporate organisations, funding agencies and NGOs to assist communities to handle projects of choice by communities with active participation of such communities by providing labour, materials, space and any other ways they can.
He, however, charged them to be responsible in handling such funds. He said: “You have been mandated to seek funds from organisations, individuals and NGOs, but I have not mandated you to pilfer such funds. When you get any financial assistance or contributions, inform the council appropriately and go ahead and apply the funds for what it is made for, not to help yourselves to it”.
He said the move of setting up committees for the development of rural areas was in tandem with the National Policy on Community Development as a new approach of the Federal Government.
This paradigm shift is essentially concerned with mobilising communities in the society to involve themselves in activities aimed at self-improvement with the resources available.
You have been commissioned to go to your respective communities to mobilise the people to be to be part of the development process of their environments. You are to change the mind-set of the ordinary rural dwellers who believe that the development of his environment is the sole responsibility of the government.
The committees’ terms of reference include, but not limited to: taking decisions on the type of projects and prioritise the activities to be carried out; raise funds and explore other available resources for community development activities; provision of logistic support for rural communities to carry out community development programmes and to collate monthly reports from various communities for AMAC”.
Speaking earlier, Chairperson, AMAC Community Development Committee, Mrs. Olayinka Oduneye Adeneye, said the strategy “plays a crucial role in supporting active democratic life by promoting the autonomous strong voice of the disadvantaged and the vulnerable in the communities.
