The Wife of Ekiti State Governor, Chief (Mrs) Bisi Fayemi, has lauded the Governor Kayode-Fayemi-led administration for signing into law the bill transforming the State Action Committee on AIDS (SACA) to a full-fledged agency.
SACA’s bill was one of the eight bills signed into law by the governor at a colourful ceremony held at the Governor’s Office.
The move is part of the strategies devised by the agency to reduce the prevalencee of the HIV/AIDS in the state.
With the signing of the bill, the committee is now to be known as the Ekiti State AIDS Control Agency.
In an interview shortly after the signing of the bill, Mrs Fayemi, who is also the Chairperson of the agency, described the event as a milestone in the history of the state.
She was confident that it would give the state ample opportunity to access more funds from foreign and indigenous donors to tackle the HIV/AIDS scourge in the state.
The First lady commended the State House of Assembly for ensuring the quick passage of the people-oriented bill, which she said was geared towards making life more meaningful to the people.
She said,
“The significance of SACA becoming a full-fledged agency is that henceforth, the agency is going to become an autonomous entity. It is going to have statutory allocation for its own financial, human and material resources.
The new status will ensure that at the state level, we have the capacity to respond effectively to issues that concern HIV/AIDS.”
She also commended SACA and Civil Society Organizations in the state for their resilience in the last one decade, which she said contributed to the elevation of the committee to agency.
Erelu Bisi Fayemi said that the new identity would provide the platform for the state to occupy its rightful position among similar agencies in other states of the federation towards a collective effort aimed at stemming the tide of HIV/AIDS.
According to her, “The next step is for SACA to ensure that we attract significant resources to address the challenges of the pandemic in our state.”
Also speaking, the Project Manager of SACA, Dr Charles Doherty, commended the administration for its promise to assist SACA in securing necessary logistics that would make it more effective in discharging its statutory responsibilities.
He stressed that the goal of the agency was to achieve zero per cent HIV/AIDS prevalence, with emphasis that the prevalence of more than one per cent attributed to the state was still very high when compared with the population of the state.
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Last modified: February 2, 2012