A university Don Dr Deibi Nwiedo has advocated for the provision of electricity in the rural area in Rivers State in order to boost small and medium scale businesses. Dr Diebi Nwiedo who is a lecturer in the Department of Economic at the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education said that poor electricity supply had hampered growth in rural communities in the state.
He also said that lack of development in rural communities in the state is responsible for the over population in the city centre.
“There is something about development that we seem not to notice. The moment you have the cluster of small business around an area, people begin to move in, the market capacity expand. As the market capacity expands, more investment comes in, leading to development in that area” he stated.
The university Don also called on the Federal Government to channel the proceeds from the plan sales of property recovered from looters to infrastructural development.
“Instead of going to borrow freshly, I think it is okay for the government to get its money from those who stole from them and put it back to the budget to reduce the level of deficit (that is borrowing) which we all complained of. If the recovered money is used for rural development and youth empowerment, what is wrong with that ” he said.
