Speaking at the opening of the 5th ordinary meeting of the state's council on Monday, the Chief Umod Ubong said encouraging activities were carried out in agriculture, revenue collection, social service delivery, capacity building, and good governance sectors, among others.

During 1999/2000 E.C crop seasons, the chief said, 192,000 quintals of agricultural output was harvested in the state through developing over 17,300 hectares of land. The figure does not include amounts from four woredas pending confirmation.

The state collected 111 million birr in revenues during the stated period, which is over 9 percent beyond the set target and exceeded by three million birr from the amount collected during same time the previous year.

In the health sector, Umod said, commendable activities were carried out to control and prevent the spread of HIV/ AIDS and tuberculosis as well as other diseases.

Furthermore, the activities carried out to maintain quality of education and enhance capacities of educational institutions were laudable.

Over 1000 executive bodies drawn from the regional and woreda administrations received capacity building training, he said, adding more than 2000 experts are attending short and long term training in various higher learning institutions.

Public conference which attracted participation over 2750 elders, youth, scholars, students was held with a view to strengthening peace and good governance activities in the state.

Development board, which is coordinated by Ministry of Federal Affairs, has been contributing a lot to promote development activities.

According the chief the joint development and good governance cooperation with the South Ethiopia Peoples’ State has also witnessed positive results in fostering development.

The council on today heard performance report of the state, reports of Supreme Court and audit bureaus and held discussion on them.

R...05:10-06:00 pm

E: 6:36 p.m.

---END---