A total of  82 communities in Ekiti State on Thursday, got cheques totaling N300million (Three Hundred Million Naira) to undertake various community projects under the Self-Help Programe of the State Government.
Presenting the cheques to the various benefiting communities in Oye- Ekiti, the State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi said the gesture is in fulfillment of the resolutions reached with community leaders in the state during the stakeholders’ meetings held last year. He added that the self-help project
is in line with the government’s commitment to doing development with the people.

Representatives of the benefitting communities as well as their traditional rulers were in joyful mood as they filed out to receive their checks. Many of the towns unions defied the early morning rainfall, came out in full traditional regalia and masquerades which turned the entire ceremony into a
carnival.

Governor Fayemi who personally presented the cheques, assisted by the national Chairman of the ACN, Chief Bisi Akande and a former Governor of the state, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, said the communities had at the meetings submitted their priority self-help projects for grants assistance and are getting the N300 million grant for the completion of various ongoing, abandoned and uncompleted self-help projects as well as provision of boreholes, access culverts among others in the benefiting communities.

He assured that every community in the state, no matter the population, will benefit from the grants- in-aid programme of the administration before the end of the year. He said the Ministry of Rural development and Community Empowerment was specifically created to focus on development in
the rural areas.