N6.5bn Benue Land Administration Complex Ready In December

Benue State Commissioner for Lands, Survey and Solid Minerals, Bernard Unenge, has said that work on the State Geographic Information Service would be completed in December.

The commissioner made the disclosure in an interview with journalists in Makurdi.

He said work on the N6.5 billion project commenced in February 2020 and was meant to provide space for the automated land administration agency in the state.

Unenge described the complex as Governor Samuel Ortom’s signature project, adding that it would ensure seamless land administration and generate revenue for government.

He explained that apart from the complex, three service points would be established across the state to ease the process of land administration and management.

“We have marked Gboko, Otukpo, and Adikpo to serve as zonal centers so that we can cover the entire state.

“The Adikpo service point is supposed to cater for the people within the zone A, and the Otukpo center for zone C.

“The one in Gboko is going to be a supporting facility for the main center, which is going to take care of zone B and the entire state,” he added.

The commissioner said,  already, the government had engaged a facility manager for the complex to ensure proper maintenance of the property.

“We have employed a facility manager who is an engineer; he started the project from scratch and knows the ICT facilities and the structural components of the project.

“We are hopeful that with him on site we should be able to bring about a plan for the maintenance of the facility.”

Unenge said 80 percent of the staff have been trained to handle the ICT facilities to be deployed for the smooth operation of the geographic information service.

“We are also having training, which 80% have been carried out; we have sent them on seminars that are relevant to their ICT development,” he added.

He explained that the ministry had concluded the mapping of the 23 local government areas of the state, adding that the auto photo would be used to produce land titles.

“We also have the equipment for surveying, mapping, and vehicles, we are hoping that by the time it is implemented we will have more.

“We are also working on revenue generation, we have a small component that is going to work on the revenue generation drive,” the commissioner said.

Unenge thanked the governor for initiating and funding the project.

“When we started people didn’t believe in it, but today you can see the project is about 95% completed.

According to him, the GIS technology would in the long run be used for intelligence gathering to support security agencies in the state.

“Our prayer is that this project will be sustained after this administration, so that whoever is going to come on board will have the same spirit and understanding that we have towards this project,” Unenge said.