Alhaji Sadiq Yelwa, Managing Director of Hydroelectric Power Producing Area Development Commission (HYPPADEC), says criticism is considered a wake-up call for the agency to do more for the people.
Yelwa made these remarks in an interaction with the newsmen in Minna, Niger State.
He described those who criticise the Commission, in public interest, as partners in progress and not detractors.
HYPPADEC is charged with the responsibility of formulating policies and guidelines for the development of Hydroelectric Power Producing Areas.
It is also to manage ecological menace due to the operations of dams and other Hydroelectric power activities in their areas.
“Publication against the commission will not deter us.
“Sometimes, negative publications would check you and improve your quality of service delivery.
“If there is false publication against you, you study the key points and guard against them.
“We see all criticism as a way of telling us to do better.
“We are quite grateful for such interest in our activities of serving the generality of Nigerians.”
Yelwa said that within the little time the Commission started operations, it had empowered its staff to serve as agents of development and continuity.
“They are our partners for programmes and project delivery; whatever success we want to achieve, we can only do that through them.
“That is why, when we came, we provided them ample opportunities for training to assess their capacity.
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“To improve on that, we gave every department the opportunity to have its staff better trained so that they become better than they came.
“We also looked at their welfare and ensure good remuneration for them.”
Yelwa said staff were the backbone of the Commission and would continue to receive priority from the management.
He said no fewer than 5,000 youths had benefitted from its empowerment programmes across the six States.
He listed the States in the jurisdiction of HYPPADEC as Niger, Kebbi, Benue, Plateau, Kogi and Kwara, adding that Taraba, Gombe and Kaduna were on the drawing board.
Yelwa said that the Commission organised a Youth Transformation programme that makes them self-reliant and become employers of labour.
According to him, the beneficiaries identified skills of their interest in order to impact relevant knowledge in them.
“Over 5,000 beneficiaries are coming with their relatives for training.
“And these are not in the proposal, but it’s a good development.
“Those that benefit from these skills training will commence the next step because of the success recorded.
“By the end of 2025, we will have over 30,000 beneficiaries of our programme to become self-employed.
“We’re also talking with financial institutions to support them with zero-interest loans.”
He called on communities under HYPPADEC to guard interventions provided by the Commission so that they would benefit them.
Yelwa also urged the electricity generating companies, GENCOs, to continue to fulfil their obligations to their host communities as part of their Corporate Social responsibilities.
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