The abysmal performance of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) since inception in 2001 has drawn the ire of President Goodluck Jonathan and he has vowed to take a decisive action on the matter. The commission is reported to have abandoned 285 projects across the oil-producing region and currently funding the renovation of a privately owned club in Port Harcourt.
The President made known his displeasure on Tuesday when he received the 2005 to 2011 report of the Presidential Monitoring Committee on the NDDC submitted by Chief Isaac Jemide.
According to the committee’s report, in all 609 projects undertaken by the commission and inspected, 222 have been completed, 102 on-going and 285 abandoned.
The report also revealed that the commission has awarded a contract for the renovation of a privately-owned club in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, among other anomalies.
The presidential committee further indicted the NDDC for the abandonment of a large number of projects and the refusal to address the issue of abandoned projects with no evidence of any attempt to recover the funds using appropriate government agencies such as the EFCC and ICPC.
President Jonathan, an indigene of the Niger Delta appeared very dissatisfied with the report, saying that there were issues in the NDDC. Such issues tend to defeat the purpose for which the commission was set up, he added.
He also decried the unjustifiable introduction of astronomical variations on the contracts sum of most projects awarded by the NDDC over short periods of time, promising to look into how some of these variations were effected prior to project commencement and also the controversial contract to renovate a privately owned club in Rivers State.
The Presidential Monitoring’s report covered projects awarded in three states of Cross River, Edo, and Rivers States between 2005 and 2011. The committee was mandated to look into the financial management of the commission within the period as well as how contracts were procured.
Monitoring of 1,510 projects for the period 2005-2011 in the remaining six NNDC states is said to have also been completed and the reports are being compiled for submission to the President in the near future.