President Muhammadu Buhari has saved the Niger
Delta Development Commission (NDDC) from being shut down due to over trading,
bloated contracts and other sharp practices in the Commission, the Interim
Management Committee (IMC) of the interventionist agency has said.
Addressing a press conference at the NDDC
headquarters in Port Harcourt, River State, the acting Executive Director,
Projects of the Commission, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, said the Commission was sinking
and would have been “killed and buried” but for the intervention of Buhari.
He noted that the Commission had embarked on a
contrat-awarding spree and had awarded contracts more than 300 per cent of the
budget of the Commission.
Ojougboh said: “In 2017, the NDDC awarded a total
of 201 emergency contracts valued at N100,396,879,001.06; in 2018, a total
1,057 emergency contracts valued at N162,688,289,333.05 were awarded; and in
just seven months of 2019, it awarded a total 1,921 emergency contracts valued
at N1,070,249,631,757.70.
“We are talking about a total of over N1.3trillion
in less than three years. The yearly budget of the NDDC is hardly above N400
billion and a situation where contracts that do not qualify for emergencies
were fraudulently awarded to over one trillion naira valued in less than one year
amounts to not only stealing from the pulpit but stealing the entire pulpit.”
Buhari had
ordered a forensic audit of the Commission and appointed an interim management
Committee (IMC), headed by acting Managing Director, Dr. Joi Nunieh. Other members
of the committee are Mr. Ibanga Etang as acting executive director, finance and
administration, and Ojuogboh as the acting executive director, projects.
As part of measures to sanitise and reposition the
Commission to fulfill its mandate, Ojuogboh said the acting managing director
has inaugurated a Contract Verification Committee.
The inauguration of the committee, he said, was a
prelude to the forensic audit ordered by Buhari.
Ojougboh, who is the Chairman of the Contract
Verification Committee, explained at the press conference that the two-week exercise
would cover all completed as well as on-going projects and programmes of the
Commission.
He observed that the NDDC was set up not only to
offer a lasting solution to the socio-economic and environmental problems of
the Niger Delta region by conceiving and implementing plans aimed at developing
the infrastructure and human capacity
building, but also complement the efforts of the various state governments and
other developmental agencies in the region.
According to Ojougboh, “Whilst successive leadership
of the NDDC may have done their best, today, the general conclusion of most
stakeholders in the region is that the NDDC has not delivered on its mandate.
At best, it has been a lack-lustre performance, with very little to show for
the humongous resources that have accrued to it over the past 19 years. Stories
of pervasive corruption, flagrant abuse of due process, abandoned projects, poor
quality project delivery among others at the NDDC have adorned our media space
over the years.”
“In an effort to stem this unfortunate tide, governors of
the nine states of the region, a couple of months ago, visited President
Muhammadu Buhari to not only lay bare their perception of the Commission since
its inception, but to also as members of the Advisory Council of the NDDC,
offer useful advice on the way forward to the president. The result of this
historic visit is the ordering of a forensic audit of the activities of the
NDDC from inception to date by the president.”
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