Kogiflame
Out of thirty-five ultra-modern fish ponds built by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund for the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, only five of them are being utilised, THE WHISTLER discovered on Wednesday.
The fish ponds have pipe-borne water connected to each of them, with a functional borehole attached to them. However, the ponds lack water due to paucity of funds to pump water to the facilities.
Out of the five operational ponds, the cumulative number of fish in all of them is less than fifty. The waters where they are brooding are also unkempt.
“This project was attracted to this university in 2014 by the then vice chancellor,” says a student who was seen around the premises. “Aside the fish section, we have other sections for piggery, cows, rabbits and poultry. All of them are functioning to some extent, but the fishery section is nothing to write home about.”
Our correspondent gathered that water has not been pumped to the ponds where the few fish are staying for some days because there is no diesel to power it.
A customer who came to buy fish at the place, who refused to be mentioned, said, “The fish here are cheaper. A kilogramme of fish is about N1400 while other places sell at N1600 per kilo. The problem is that there are no fish to buy here. Just very small.
“If this place is handed over to a private person to manage, the output can saturate the entire Enugu State. I don’t know why anything that government has a hand in is always wrongly managed. That is why there is unemployment everywhere because the government does not encourage private sector development neither does it manage public resources very well.”
The head of the animal science department of the institution was not around to comment, but a source in the department said only the vice chancellor would have answers to the questions concerning the funding of the fishery unit.
