Ministry of Cooperative and Rural Development
Headed by: Joyce Luga
Address: Kashim Ibrahim Road, PMB 102200, Makurdi, Benue State.
The ministry has the mandate to initiate, implement, manage and sustain development programs amongst rural communities especially in the key areas of infrastructures, economic empowerment and human capacity building.
The ministry also provides infrastructures like electrification of satellite towns and villages in all Benue State Local Government Areas.
The ministry also develop rural areas through community development projects in other to better lives. The empowerment of the populace of Benue State through establishment of cooperative societies to enable them engage in economic activities in other to improve lives.
Benue State Rural Development and Cooperatives Ministry has a strong synergy with other ministries and agencies. In addition to this synergy, there is a collaboration and monitoring activities as well as mobilization of additional resources for rural development in Benue State.
To realize this, the ministry is structured into (4) departments including:
Administration and Finance Department
The department has the general responsibility of managing both human and material resources of the ministry while specifically performing the following functions:
- Coordinates and harmonizes the activities of the various departments of the ministry.
- Handles staff matters including supervision, promotions and other welfare issues, discipline and placements within the ministry.
- Handles correspondence and maintains records.
- Handles security matters.
- Keeps records of ministry’s facilities like vehicles, trucks and plants.
- Trains and assesses training needs of staff.
- Handles receipts and payments.
- Responsible for staff salaries and allowances.
- Maintains store records.
Rural Roads and Electrification Department
The department of rural roads and electricity is very key to rural transformation. The department has the unique responsibility of providing feeder roads, bridges, culverts and electricity to open up rural areas.
Cooperative Services Department
This department is as old as Benue State and was created with the view to mobilize both human and material resources towards improving the wellbeing of Benue people. The department has moved from one ministry to the other. It’s now made a vital component of this ministry with a new vision and focus of mobilizing the Benue populace particularly the rural dwellers, to look inward and generate resources, as much as avail themselves to opportunities being created by government and other organizations towards individual capacity building and collective development.
The department, there has a statutory responsibility of:
- Registration, cancellation, amalgamation, split and inspection of cooperative societies.
- Organization of Primary Societies, Secondary(Unions) and Tertiary(Federation).
- Mobilization of people to from or join cooperative societies of their choice.
- Education of members and prospective members of cooperative societies on their duties, rights, responsibilities and privileges.
- Linkage with international donors like UNDP, International Funds For Agricultural Development, IFAD; World Health Organisation, WHO; FGN, NGOs, LGS and other States development agencies.
- Administrative duties as well as provision of management advise on policy issues to staff and cooperative organizations in the state.
Community Development Department
The main functions of the department include:
- To sensitize, mobilize and organize communities to form development associations.
- To register community development associations for effective control and monitoring of their activities towards sustainable rural transformation.
- To supervise, monitor and evaluate community development projects such as schools, healthcare clinics and feeder roads, and so on.
- To control all grants and disbursement to relevant viable community projects, through community development associations.
- To advise and regulate the formation and the registration of community development associations.
- To act as data banks for community development associations, projects and community based resources.
- To work hand in hand with development bodies such as; United Nations Development Programme, UNDP; Community and Social Development Project, CSDA; Department For International Development, DFID; FADAMA and so on, that are involved in community development.
- To ensure that community development programmes are in line with the overall state government development plans.