Federal Lawmakers Working Against NDDC, Says IMC

The Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has accused members of the National Assembly for majority of the rots in the commission.

The Federal lawmakers, it alleged, were frustrating efforts to develop the Niger Delta and requesting N6.4bn for 132 unexecuted projects.

These, Acting Managing Director of the Commission, Prof. Keme Pondei,said accounted for the barrage of allegations thrown at it by some interest groups including its attacks by some members of the National Assembly.

Pondei, who spoke at the NDDC corporate headquarters in Port Harcourt, on Tuesday, traced the troubles of the commission to ambitions of the chairmen of the two NDDC committees in the Senate and the House Representatives.

Pondei called on the management of the National Assembly to investigate the activities of the two chairmen saying that most members of their committees were not aware of the motives behind their actions against the IMC.

For instance, he said: “We have faced so much pressure from some members of the National Assembly not to send certain files to forensic auditors. We fear this will compromise the integrity of the exercise and have refused to do their bid”.

Pondei said his committee was faced with additional pressure from some members of the National Assembly to pay for 132 jobs, which had no proof of execution.

“We have refused to pay out N6.4bn for those jobs. We believe that an IMC set up as a cleansing structure cannot become part of the old story of rot”, he said.

The manager lamented that 50 per cent of NDDC inability to deliver its mandate came from the stranglehold of the national assembly on the commission.

He said the IMC summoned the courage that evaded its predecessors to tell members of the public the truth about the overbearing and selfish attitude of some federal lawmakers on the commission because it was on a mission to make the NDDC better with a limited mandate till December.

He said the National Assembly was fond of delaying the passage of the commission’s budget until its implementation was too late.

Pondei said: “The 2019 budget was passed two months to the end of its implementation period. In fact, the hard copy was received by the commission on April 10, 2020 when the implementation period ends in May 31.

“Given the procurement rules, it is not enough time to call for tender and execution of the jobs. The statutory period for advertising tenders is six weeks.

“Two, the budgets are bastardised by the National Assembly in a way that renders it useless. A case will suffice. In the 2019 Budget, we had a provision of N1.32bn to pay our counterpart funding to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for the $129.7m Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises Programme in the Niger Delta (LIFE-ND).

“The National Assembly cut the provision to N100million. Are we going to IFAD, UN agency to tell them to bring their $129.7m when our national assembly says we can only pay N100m out of N1.32bn obligation?

“The national assembly members insert items we have no plans for. These items are then forced on the commission when it is not part of the masterplan. Rather than be a major intervention agency, the commission is busy erecting streetlights and drainage, something local governments should do.

“The NDDC operates accounts only in the Central Bank and it is highly regulated. Anybody, who wants to check the NDDC is free to do so.

“Just like in the Bible where some people said they would not eat and sleep until the killed a certain Paul, some people have also decided that until this IMC is removed, they will not know any rest without minding whether the people of the Niger Delta benefits or not. They want to scuttle the forensic audit because the audit is bringing out a lot of things.

While acknowledging that the lawmakers reserved the rights to probe NDDC, he said such investigations when done in normal times would be a welcome development.

He added: “The issue now is the the IMC is focused on delivering on the President’s forensic audit by December when its tenure ends. The probe at this time is actually distracting the commission from focusing on that exercise, which all stakeholders including governors of the nine Niger Delta states agreed with Mr. President is the way forward to the commission.

“We suspect that the probe being trumpeted by the National Assembly is not for altruistic reason but an attempt by some members to arm-twist the IMC”.

Pondei further explained that some politicians from the region were struggling for the control of the NDDC for their selfish political ambitions adding that the forthcoming Delta State governorship election was part of the reasons for the struggle.

He said: “Sometimes last year, there was a board that was screened by the National Assembly to run the NDDC but was not inaugurated before an IMC was instituted. Many people, who felt that should not be have continued to fight until the people they need to run the NDDC are put in place.

“But I think there is something very wrong there. How can the national assembly nominate people to run the NDDC and give the list to Mr. President. The Mr. President will now pass the list the national assembly to screen for those people to come and run the NDDC.

“There is separation of powers. Mr. President has the rights to nominate who ever he feels to run a place. He has the powers to hire and fire. So, they should leave Mr. President to exercise that power. Their attempt to dabble into the powers of Mr. President that is bringing all these blackmails.

“They want NDDC to remain the way it has always been. A place that generates money for elections. But we cannot continue to use the NDDC as a place to generate money for elections. The real problem we are seeing now is because of the governorship election in Delta State. That is just the basic truth.”